Dinner for three, December 2002.

A tasting of three olive oils.  The first wine was an excellent Soave, with a hint of botrytis!  A slight sweetness in a normally dry wine.

Bruschetta of tiny pachino tomatoes from Sicily, with garlic and good olive oil.

A risotto of Vialone Nano with some dilute prawn stock and fennel seeds.  Cockles added near the end of cooking.

A dariole of crab, pancetta and basil with a reduced tomato sauce.

Now an Italian rosé wine that did not live up to its recommendation.

Bought in tagliatelle nero (coloured with squid ink).  Large raw prawns flash fried and a well reduced, aromatic prawn stock.

A saltimbocca of trout and sage, wrapped in parma ham.  Served on borlotti beans with a sauce of cream, sherry and parmesan.

A very nice pheasant (eleven lead shots removed) jointed.  The legs roasted in a very hot oven, the breast, liver and heart pan grilled and rested in a warm oven.   Potatoes and carrots roasted in goose fat and olive oil.  Steamed baby courgettes.  The sauce is shallot, garlic and pancetta sautéed and boiled down in a fowl stock with a touch of red wine.

A Barbera d'Alba was served with this.  Good stuff, but a bit of the flying winemaker about it.  Perhaps a little too young.

Our new slate board hosted a taleggio, a gorgonzola picante and a weird and wonderful mouldy cheese from Piemonte.  It is made from only the summer milking of alpine herds and matured in caves.  A new Italian deli has just opened in York.

The wine with this was a sort of port from 1945.  The Massandra Imperial vineyards in the Crimea copied the great wines of Europe.

It was beautifully clear, but had lost its nose.  Interesting though.

And so to the desserts.  These were served with an Italian dessert wine that was thoroughly ordinary.

A tiramisu of Italian savoiardi biscuits soaked in strong, sweetened espresso, strengthened with Kahlua.  Layered with mascarpone cheese lightly beaten with egg yolk.  Dusted with 100% cocoa powder.

A panna-cotta of English double cream, vanilla sugar and some good rum.  A couli of frozen summer fruits, very briefly boiled with a little rum and sugar, then briefly blitzed and passed.  I think this was my favourite course.

An ice-cream of a vanilla custard churned with citrus peel and raisins soaked in grappa.  I served this with a present from Amalfi.  A jar of rum-baba type things, but they seemed to have been soaked in paint stripper.  Oh well, the ice cream was very good.

Biscotti from that Italian deli and vin santo, for dunking.

Chocolates and espresso to finish.