April 07

There I was, stumbling around the food blogs of the world, looking for people who might appreciate the book, when I tripped over a ball of pea soup at Hungry in Hogtown. I had a "ball" of intensely flavoured consommée served in a spoon at Manairo in Barcelona before Christmas, but Rob at HinH has deconstructed the orginal El Bulli technique, and then reconstructed it in his own kitchen. A most impressive dedication to molecular gastronomy, beatifully described.

Now, where did I leave that food grade sodium alginate?

Good reviews are always welcome, especially when they're by someone who knows whereof they write. So thanks, Barbara at winosandfoodies.com for taking the time to read the book and post so nicely about it. She ploughed through the PDF edition in about a day, which shows great determination!

Don't open the tin, Barbara...

Seracs above the Fox Glacier, Westland

Back at my desk after touring the South Island with friends from London. Mt Cook, Queenstown, the glaciers on the West Coast, Punakaiki, the Abel Tasman (on Jamarh again) and dolphins at Kaikoura. A great time was had by all... Now I have to remember what I was doing before we left. At my age, that's not trivial.

Here's the link for the Radio New Zealand archive of Saturday's Kim Hill show. It seemed to go well. If you wonder why there's a brief diversion into Welsh vocabulary in the middle, it's because one of her earlier guests (physicist Paul Callaghan) was discussing colour, and opined that the Welsh had no word for green. He was wrong. The stream will be available for four weeks (Windows Media Player required).