Alex

Recent Comments

• The 5 Worst Dishes to Bring to a Party (Slashfood)

  Dec 11th 2009 6:48AM Given the amount of fat in hummous I'm interested to know how it is 'safe' for dieters.
  
  TBH, if you're worried about garlic ... I'm worried about your 'swinging singles mixers' ...
  
  

• How to Open Champagne - Uncorking the Bubbles (Slashfood)

  Dec 4th 2009 5:06PM You can see a video of Champagne bottle opening here:
  
  http://www.viddler.com/explore/azp74/videos/1/

• What Can I Get You Folks? - The Clean Plate Club (Slashfood)

  Nov 17th 2009 6:21AM I'm reasonably slim and nothing annoys me more than when ANYONE comments on how much I eat.
  
  If I were a fat person scarfing down a piece of cake no one would ever say "I don't think you should be eating that, love" yet for some reason how much, or how little, I've eaten very often appears to be fair game.
  
  I'm with Amanda, if at least half of the food has been eaten, then no comment required. If it's barely been touched, then it is worth a waiter asking if everything was OK.
  
  If a lot of food is left on the

• What Can I Get You Folks? - How to Know When It's Time to Go (Slashfood)

  Jul 23rd 2009 8:09PM Dinner for 2 in 42 minutes? You are seriously joking. If you were to demolish dinner in 42 minutes you'd have indigestion and you'd probably eat too much from eating too quickly. That's just disgusting! And there's nothing worse than being rushed through a meal - it really winds me up when I've got half a glass of red wine left and someone expects me to eat pudding.
  
  The way I look at it is that if a restaurant wants to turn tables they can let me know when I make the booking: "that's not a problem but we'll need the table for 9pm". Then I'm more than happy to make sure I'm done & dusted by then.

• What Can I Get You Folks? - The Case for Pre-tipping (Slashfood)

  Jul 15th 2009 7:50PM In the UK the 'optional' gratuity is used by restaurants to top up staff wages to the minimum level. This is unacceptable on several counts.
  
  1. If you employ staff you expect to pay, as a minimum, minimum wage. You should not budget to pay below minimum wage and count on spare change to make up the difference!
  
  2. As an employee, you expect to be paid, at least, minimum wage. If customers leave tips, you expect those tips to be on top of your minimum wage, not contributing to it.
  
  3. As a customer, when you leave a tip, you expect it to go to your waiter on top of his or her pay.
  
  As a customer, I go to a restaurant and expect to receive the same service as people at the table next to me - not some bizarre system where people splashing cash before the meal MAY get preferential treatment. There's no comment in the article about how customers would deal with the situation where they've tipped generously up front and received service below their expectations.
  
  Pay staff properly, as an employer outline your expectations of those staff, and tips are then icing on the cake.

• 'The Great Big Butter Cookbook' - Cookbook Spotlight (Slashfood)

  Jun 25th 2009 2:33AM I received a review copy of this book January last year and tried two recipes: the crispy chicken strips & the carrot cake and both worked out well (the carrot cake was a bit on the sweet side for me but I find that with 95% of American recipes).
  
  I thought it was a good, all round sort of cookbook, as it covers a lot of ground. You're right that the Heston Blumenthals of the world are unlikely to be challenged but sometimes you do actually need a recipe for carrot cake!
  
  My full review is here: http://eatingleeds.co.uk/2008/01/great-big-butter-cookbook.html

• The RSVP Conundrum - Advice Welcome (Slashfood)

  Mar 11th 2009 9:47AM We've had the exact same problem with our farewell party this Saturday. We've hired a small bar and invited people in a combination of methods. Anyone who we wrote to (or emailed or facebooed or whatever) we said we needed to know numbers.
  
  I was particularly anxious about this as I didn't want a relatively new, small independent bar closing its doors to other customers if only 10 of my friends turned up!
  
  The number of people who think it's appropriate to RSVP this week is unbelievable. We sent out the invitations at the end of January as we wanted people who had to travel to have as much time as possible to organise transport and accommodation.
  
  I'm actually moving to the other side of the world but my approach from now on is going to be to think very carefully about inviting stallers/non responders in future. If you want to leave the slot free in your diary to see what else comes up then you don't actually want to come to my event so I'd rather you not be there!

• Barefoot Busts Out More Bubbly (Slashfood)

  Mar 5th 2009 2:26PM Since when is a wine that comes from outside the little region based around Reims in France Champagne?!

• Christian-izing Salt is Just Not Kosher (Slashfood)

  Mar 4th 2009 5:31PM I'm not entirely sure how anti-Semitism comes in to it ...
  
  I've always wondered what this mysterious 'kosher' salt is that's referenced in American recipes and was pretty disappointed when I found out it was bog standard flaky crystals. On another site I read a rabbi comment that all salt is inherently kosher, in which case using 'kosher' to describe a particular type of salt is not helpful at all.
  
  The guy is clearly a bit ... eccentric, but he's come up with an idea which he thinks is going to be his USP. I'd be more worried about the type of people who'll buy into & embrace his line of Christian household goodies!

• A Tip from M.F.K. Fisher - Order Restaurant Dinners Ahead of Time (Slashfood)

  Feb 20th 2009 11:36AM It's precisely for all those reasons that I love tasting and set menus. You don't have to think about the structure of your meal and you get to try things you'd possibly not normally order.