Ok, so this morning's idle fantasy has all the hallmarks of a sixth-form debating society also-ran. But like many crazy notions, maybe it isn't completely crazy. One reason why sending US$ 2.50 to one of the hungry billion is so appealing is that it is direct. You have money, you send money, they spend money. No middle men, no overheads, no opportunity for graft or corruption or impact assessment studies.

No hope.

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There's something mesmerizing about being at a Very Important Meeting of Very Important People and listening to all the Very Important Utterances. They are, by and large, so utterly meaningless and yet are uttered as if pregnant unto term with meaning. I write some down, just to keep my hand in. I share a few of those, to general amusement. And I give thanks that I don't have to produce copy.

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I wanted to have another go at Dan Lepard's Black Pepper Rye, making use of two new ideas. First, rather than attempt to control boiling the rye flour in the coffee, which gave lots of people trouble, I planned to just pour boiling coffee over the rye flour. Secondly, instead of dried yeast, I wanted to use my ordinary white-flour starter. Combined, these two offer an opportunity to practise (and attempt to explain) baker's math.

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This is tricky. I watched Itay Talgam's wonderful TedTalk on the way to a day of meetings at work. Lead like the great conductors is a fine, inspiring talk that Talgam has honed to perfection. A joy to watch, a joy to listen to, a joy to learn from. His main point is that the great conductors of g...

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My hardback copy (16th printing) of Mastering the Art ... was bought so that I wouldn’t have to contend with the stains on the paperback when I wanted to read rather than cook. (Alas, there's no recipe in it for humble pie.) So when Julie and Julia was released earlier in the summer, I was sniffy....

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