The arrival of the new telly caused a total cable pandemonium at our home this morning. That’s because of husband’s desire to connect everything to it – the speakers, the sky + box, the blu-ray thingy. Frankly, he might as well connect my kitchen sink and the fridge to it for what I care…

Nevertheless, the telly had to be tested so we turned it on. As luck would have it a food programme with Nigel Slater and his “Simple Supers” series was on. Obviously a BBC repeat. For those in the dark, Mr Slater is a well established food writer – and, according to him, a cook rather than a chef – who has been around since the early 90s. I must say, I have never particularly warmed to his writing. I tend to skip his columns in the magazines and his cookbooks don’t grace my shelves.  But his little chat was so enchanting that I actually found myself sitting down on the sofa and watching it properly. 

I have learnt two things from him on parmesan: grate some into your burger mix and you won’t need the egg and breadcrumbs; add an old (back of the fridge) rind when cooking any soup to intensify the flavour.

Normally, I wouldn’t dream of watching TV on Saturday morning, but this little experience shows that I might just make a habit of it. Who knows, I might even become a fan of Nigel Slater after all.

I have been challenged to a cassoulet. Yes, that’s right. Dilip left a comment on my blog in September asking what would be the impatient person’s recipe for a cassoulet. Now, anyone with any understanding of cooking knows that cassoulet takes hours to make. In fact, you could probably go on a three-day holiday, come back, and it will still be not quite ready….. A tough one, so I had to chew on it for a bit.

I consulted my one and only inspirational French cookbook – by The Roux Brothers (I would recommended it but it’s impossible to buy anywhere; I’ve checked) – and learnt that their recipe for Cassoulet of Chicken Legs and Garlic took two and half hours. No good for the impatient chef!

Still, stubborn as always, I came out with my own take on this classic dish and after three attempts I’m delighted to say I have cracked it. My cassoulet, or “Dilip’s Cassoulet” as it will be called, stars succulent chicken thighs, flavoursome chorizo and cannellini beans with a support of fragrant fresh rosemary, pungent garlic, juicy red pepper and a few humble spuds. Delicious, I can promise you that! All I need to do now is cook it for the fourth time (I always test my recipes at least four times), write it up and I’m ready. So watch this space for a 30-minute cassoulet à la impatient chef .

About a year ago I asked friends (and friends of the friends) what it is that they dislike eating most. That’s excluding food allergies, intolerances and fad diets: “What it is that you would rather go hungry than eat”. I expected spinach or Brussels spouts to top the list. But no. Intriguingly, 1 in 8 people in my sample group would not touch mushrooms. Any mushrooms. When I asked “why?” I found that there are two common reasons: one, people hate the texture of mushrooms; two, more bizarrely, they are worried that they might be poisoned by mushrooms, even the white ones that are sold pre-packed on the supermarket shelves…. I think mushroom phobia is bigger than anyone ever thought.

I forgot about my little qualitative research until this week when I read that white mushrooms are an absolute bomb of antioxidant called ergothioneine (blimey, try pronouncing it), which does wonders to your skin keeping the wrinkles at bay. Well, phobia or not, there is some truth about magic in mushrooms, so enjoy as many as you can.

Tempted by the half-price offer for blackberries rather than the weather, I decided to make “Eton Mess” – a perfect desert to enjoy while watching  the X-factor on Saturday night.  

In my version, Eton Mess is not only made with blackberries instead of strawberries but, more importantly, I use a combo of Greek yoghurt and cream, which makes it velvety and super-delicious (the recipe will be posted shortly once I get around to photographing it). The point is that while I was making it, I realised that I didn’t know the true history of Eton Mess. Surely, it must be something to with the elite school…

So I’ve looked this up, and sure enough Eton Mess is “traditionally served at the annual cricket game between Eton College” , blah, blah.  Dull, exactly what you would expect. More entertaining is the fact that a dog was involved –  a Labrador to be precise. As the urban myth goes, an excited Labrador sat on a picnic basket.  You can guess the rest.  I love it, even if it might not be true.

I want to play !

Flicking through a magazine, I’ve noticed that during October the Fight Hunger / Eat Out campaign takes place. Interesting enough to investigate, so I did. Here is the deal: each October participating restaurants donate part of the price of a particular dish to the Action Against Hunger charity. This has been going since 1998 – I’ve just haven’t noticed it before. Last year, 500 of the partaking establishments raised £400k towards the cause.

Here is the odd bit. I’ve checked the sites of no less than five participating restaurants in the West End. None of them were publicising the fact or mentioning what dish makes the contribution. OK, so charity is all action not words, but I’d like to know that if I turn up somewhere with an aim to Eat & Fight, I will enjoy the charitable dish. Why don’t they just post and highlight this in their menus? Anyway, I have decided that this gives me a perfect excuse to eat at The Cinnamon Club - a fine Indian restaurant to which I have not been before … I just hope it will be clearly pointed out to me which dish is for the cause. Otherwise, I’ll feel cheated.

Have you ever turned up at the doorstep of a highly recommended restaurant only to find that it was shut, as in “closed down”? Damned annoying, but also hilarious. All depends how seriously you take it. I must admit, I was not too pleased on Thursday night when I arrived, after a long and expensive cab ride from Canary Warf to the Red Fort, a fine Indian eatery in Soho, where a table was meant to be awaiting our group of diners. Instead, we were greeted by the windows covered in white paint and old newspapers. The sight of hungry and confused business people staring at an obviously abandoned establishment must have been quite entertaining to passers-by. What was annoying was that we had actually booked the table! Even though the ovens were moved out of the premises ages ago, the restaurant’s website still takes bookings. The moral of the story: it’s not booked unless confirmed, so don’t chance it.

 Last night, heading out of London for the weekend, we drove pass The Mulberry – a bistro pub on the Surrey/Sussex border owned by Chris Evans. Yep, the same bloke who presents whatever it is on Radio 2 and is apparently due to replace Terry Wogan on their breakfast show. Not a clue what this actually means – just citing the tabloid headlines – but you know who I’m talking about. 

So back to the Mulberry story. We had been there once before: the food was plainly dreadful, my plate smelt of dirty dishcloth and the menu was over-priced. Never again, I had promised. But yesterday we noticed they had a new chef so we decided to give it a second chance. Wow. Transformation is the only word to describe it. Great food, sensibly priced. And a lively atmosphere with the ambiance enhanced by interesting art (presumably for sale – but I didn’t ask).

I had a seafood risotto (which on the menu featured as a starter but they made it into a main course for me) and apricot tarte tatin, which was divine. Mr D had a respectable vegetarian option of pumpkin ravioli with goat’s cheese and morels, then ice-cream to follow (he likes his ice-cream, the pig).

What struck me most is the line at the bottom of the menu: 50% of all profits go to CHASE – a children’s charity for kids who don’t expect to live until adulthood. Now, whether you are a fan of Chris Evans or not – I think that’s admirable.

I, kind of, have and have not read the reviews. I saw the ratings it received in the Sunday Times (good) and the FT (not too good), but I did not read the critique in detail. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I went to see it last night, although a friend who saw it before me said that the movie was great and it deserved to be seen in a small, cosy cinema with velvety chairs and old-fashioned popcorn.

 I won’t dwell on the plot or comment on Meryl Streep’s performance as I’m not a film critic. All I say is this: if you are remotely interested in food and cooking, and if you are looking for a relaxing movie that manages to keep your attention without the high drama, then go to see this. Even if you find it a little too long as I did, you will still enjoy it – I guarantee. Just make sure you are not viewing it on a rumbling stomach …. And yes, the lobster scene? That’s so me it’s untrue.

Ed Baines, that is – a charismatic TV celebrity chef, who happened to be running a live demo cooking class at one of the BMW dealers.  

Making little sense? Let me explain. I got an invite through the post that said I could look at some cars while sipping some wine, having my nails manicured and watching a celebrity chef cooking some dishes. Never mind the “beamers”, I went to see the chef.

 The food demonstration at the car dealer seemed a bizarre concept, but it worked.  They set up a decent enough stand for the chef to do some live cooking, and the chopping action was shown on the surrounding TV screens. Cooking while chatting to the audience must be tough, but Mr Baines is engaging enough to pull it off. Not in a funny, joking way – but in an easy, light-hearted natter about cooking trivia that makes you listen.

 The food was good too: steamed crisped duck with beans and wild rice; soft shell crab tempura on lentils with wasabi mayo; and a chocolate tart. And I learnt a few tricks like the best way to deseed a whole chilli is run a chopstick through it. And that grating horseradish works as a hangover or cold cure.

So, all in all a nice way to spend Saturday morning with a follow-up to book a test drive for the X1 that launches in October. Oh yes, and a prompt to check out Randall & Aubin in Soho. Yet no-one was giving me a hard sell. Joy!

I love this time of the year. Although the summer is firmly on its way out and the days are getting shorter, the celebration of harvest is in full swing. Firstly, there is plenty of ripe and juicy fruit around. My particular favourite are figs but the season for these wonderfully deep purple, luscious fruit is short, so make the most of it in the next few weeks. If you are not sure how to enjoy figs apart from eating them raw, then think: cheese! Bring figs and goat cheese together in a salad. Mascapone and figs (with a little balsamic vinegar) make a mean desert. Figs and feta, figs and haloumi, figs and …

Secondly, impatiently I await the arrival of wild mushrooms. As a kid I used go mushroom-picking with my grandmother, but now I haven’t got a clue what’s edible and what’s poisonous, so I don’t dare. The only safe way is to pick them from the supermarkets! Decent wild mushrooms call for simple cooking, like bruchetta, so their delicately earthy flavours can really come to their own.

Thirdly, the farmers’ markets and food festivals are really worth attending this time of the year as their abundance of fresh produce is spectacular. To find the nearest one to where you live check out the local food advisor site. I’m off to a couple this weekend!

If you want to follow a recipe but you don’t have kitchen scales or a measuring jug at hand, here are a few tips to get you the approximate quantities of stuff.

Basic Tricks:   This sounds obvious but make sure you examine the package. By law, it will display th product’s weight ot measure on its label. Some brands go further: Lurpak butter, for instance, has a 25g scale on its wrapping so you know how much to slice off the bar.

Measuring Liquids:  1 teaspoon = 5 ml of liquid whereas 1 tablespoon = 15 ml of liquid.

Another trick for measuring liquid are wine glasses, which tend to come in 4 sizes 250ml (large), 175ml (medium), 145ml (small), 125ml (v small). Make sure the liquid is cold though, or you will break the glass.

An average long glass or a tumbler filled to the bream will hold 300ml of liquid. Same with a tea mug.

Look inside your saucepan. Some will have a measuring scale in them.

Other food stuff:

Roughly speaking

100g of long pasta is a bunch 1.5cm in diameter, held tightly

100g of short pasta loosely fills an average tea mug

100g of rice or couscous fills a little more than ½ of tea mug

50g of hard cheese is about the size of a matchbox but a little thicker

50g of soft cheese is one heap tablespoon

50g crème fraiche is more or less 4 level tablespoons

50g of chorizo is roughly 8cm of the sausage

If you want decent scales that won’t bream the bank then try the Salter Slim Design Electronic one, which will set you back £9.50 p+p.