Thanks, Mort. I shall! One good zingy thing is of course lemon juice, and this dish can take quite a bit of it. Plus the chillis, of course, and paprika for extra rich red colour...

Following some fairly substantial troughing at lunchtime with visiting friends in one of Brighton's Italian eateries, it's just going to be home-made celeriac soup tonight - now puttering away on the stove.  Light, healthy and extremely nom.

We're all really keen on a good hearty vegetable soup in the PW household - my own starting-point on my soup journey (as it were) was this book:



and most of my tried and tested soups are essentially variants on the recipes in the book.  Celeriac and fennel are great favourites - and really easy to do. For me, celeriac has a really clean and healthy taste, and is perfect in a soup.

The celeriac soup recipe:

1 large celeriac
2 medium-sized potatoes
1 clove garlic
vegetable stock
twist of lemon juice
A little milk

(quanitites are imprecise as I've done this one so often I simply busk it)

Chop the celeriac and potatoes, and cook in butter with chopped garlic for a few minutes without browning.  Add the stock and lemon juice, bring to the boil and simmer for a while.  Allow to cool a little and puree with the milk.

Lunch was at that Brighton institution, Donatello's, in the lanes - far from sophisticated but large, full, family-friendly, and reasonably-priced decent pasta and pizzas in generous portions.  But I'm not sure that Brighton has the sort of Italian that one would want to go to for a really special occasion.

Right.
Wedding breakfast on Saturday night.
Starter was a 'confit' of pollock on a pea purée (hiding under limp baby gem leaves) with little onions and bits of bacon scattered all around.
Main was loin of venison wellington (except with filo pastry instead of puff) with beetroot fondant potatoes and cubed roasted vegetables.
Pudding was a cranachan cheesecake with a shortcake biscuit base.
All very lovely but I couldn't help thinking that there were aspects that worked better as concepts than as tastes.
The venison came in two slices and while my first was eminently NOMable, the first was a bit bland.
How does one prepare a confit of fish? I'm quite confused by the idea.
The beetroot fondant potatoes were an interesting idea (came as a purple slab of potatoes which tasted of beetroot) but I couldn't help but think that I would really like some creamy potatoes and a separate helping of cubed roasted beetroot.

I obviously ate the lot and then biscuits and cheese, felt a little stuffed afterwards and hardly had to eat anything yesterday so it obviously wasn't too bad!!!
It was all very nice, but I can't help but critique I'm afraid. I get a lot of enjoyment out of working out how the different flavours are supposed to fit together and deciding if I think it has worked or not.

hh, I don't want to seem snobby (honest  ) but that menu strikes me as a typical dog's dinner, so to speak, put together by someone out to impress with buzzy words like 'confit' and 'fondant' and with very little understanding of its constituent ingredients. Palatable enough, no doubt, but far, far less imaginative or skillful than it wants to appear to be. Sniff.

A typical dog anxious for his dinner writes:

How one agrees with Martle. I personally wouldn't touch a meal that I couldn't engage with critically on several nuanced levels and this is mere pabulum, comfit food for the masses, designed to lull into uncritical false consciousness and fit only for ...

OI, GERROFFFF                 NOM NOM NOM NOM                     POLLOCK AND PEA BURP               
 

Down!

I dare say I would have enjoyed eating that assemblage but on paper it seems horribly pretentious, like something that would be dreamed up by a Mike Leigh character.

Darn. You beat me to it Martle!