Now this morning I woke up thinking “That was a good nights sleep”. Next came “I’m sure I was dreaming” a bit longer to remember and… it was actually a nightmare.

I had dreamt that I had taken part in Come Dine With Me. My guests had a arrived (definitely not foodies) and I hadn’t even started cooking, let alone cleaned or tidied the house, I opened the fridge and it was bare. So to my guests I offer a drink… to my horror the only bottle of wine I had in the fridge was a litre of Hock. Now I think at that point I must have woken in shock! This morning I have busied myself with ordering some more vegetables from my favourite supplier, localfarmbox.com (of course I’ve already mentioned them) and made a mental note to go wine shopping (not that Hock with ever make an appearance in my fridge). That dream is not going to become a reality, especially when I know I have guests this weekend.

I do enjoy a good Sunday afternoon sitting in front of the TV watching Come Dine With Me, picking up a few hints in what to try or more importantly what NOT to try, the commentator on this programme is fab. While talking food programmes though…

…has anyone been watching the Restaurant Inspector with Fernando Peire? To me this is a really interesting programme and I am addicted, one of my favourites so far is Bamber’s Restaurant in Bridgenorth, Shropshire the chef and owner there Matt Poulton seemed a lovely determined guy who took all Fernando’s points on board (all be it eventually with the colour scheme). However with The Olive Mill in Bridgwater, Somerset I didn’t understand why they put table cloths on the tables, surely located on a busy roadside you would be serving from lunch through to evening therefore needing to be able to turn tables during the day? Table cloths would need to be changed each time and therefore create more work? I thought the table could be laid up nicely with a coloured serviette, water/wine glass, small posy of flowers perhaps sitting on saucer and obviously cutlery. The only plus I can think of with the table cloth is that it would help to deaden any echo type noise, should there not been enough soft furnishings (carpet/rugs etc) in the dining area.  I hope at the end of the series we get a re-cap on how each restaurant is now doing.

Well keeping it random  – now salt! I read an interesting article earlier today on the difference between sea salt and table salt. I’ve always preferred sea salt as it seems more natural. Anyway I was interested to read that when cooking with salt it makes no difference whether it is sea or table. Sea salt can obviously give a better visual effect on say roasted dishes. However if adding salt after the dish is cooked sea salt will taste different.  Take a read Sea salt or table salt.

Well that’s enough random for today hope you enjoyed the read.