potatoes

The ingredients for day 7 overall, and day 3 of the 2nd round of preliminaries were:

The ingredients for this day (day 6 overall, and the second day of the second preliminary round) were:

It's now the second week. The ingredients for this day (day 5 overall, and the first day of the 2nd preliminary round) were:

The ingredients for the first day of the MasterChef preliminaries were:

Having spent some of my growing-up years in England, I have a special place in my heart for shepherd's pie, otherwise known as cottage pie. It's definitely winter food though, because nothing is as warming as piping hot shepherd's pie straight out of the oven.

This great picture of a restaurant sign in Rennes, France was taken by my friend Ciprian. It naturally inspired me to contemplate that amour de pomme de terre —love of the potato.

There is a category of cooking in almost every cuisine, "mother's cooking". It means something that's simple, homely, filling, and invokes strong feelings of nostaliga. In Japanese this is called ofukuro no aji (mother's flavor). Nikujaga, or stewed potatoes with meat, is one of the mainstays of Japanese-style mother's cooking.

One of the strangest habits of the Brits is the Fry-up. A fry-up is consumed for breakfast, is supposed to be a great hangover cure, and is a big greasy mess. Here is a rather sedate version. I've seen ones with fried kidneys, blood sausage, and more too.

I sort of wonder how the British got into the habit of consuming this lethal mixture of fat, protein, and more for breakfast while throughout the rest of Europe people settled happily for bread and coffee.