I enjoyed a delicious barbecue a couple of nights ago (and more on that barbecue soon, with photos) with -- amongst others -- Michael Mosbacher, the clued-up Director of the Social Affairs Unit who wrote this:

Young people should not be 'protected' by increased regulation from advertising of products such as snacks, fizzy drinks, computer games and alcohol...

Those who seek to impose further regulation on the advertising of these products do not have the research evidence on their side and may do harm. Many other factors other than advertising influence young peoples’ purchasing decisions, including their personality, their parents, their peers, their consumption of non-advertising media, and their cash power. Many of these are more important than advertising, especially parents and peers.

For what it's worth, I was recently at a children's birthday party where the food being served (including items brought along to the party by various parents) included salty convenience snacks (Mini-Cheddars, the British equivalent of Cheese Nips, and crisps/chips) and sugary snack items. "Well, it's just easy," one of the mothers sighed as she fed her baby a jam doughnut. I'd be interested to know how advertisements and "pester power" had forced this mother's hand, as her 1-year-old is not yet old enough to launch into the supposedly denial-resistant pleadings for branded junk food. Could it be that the stasist statists -- who keep telling us that advertisements are the reason kids are "obese," and so they must be banned in order to protect our children from capitalism -- don't actually have a clue? Gosh, I wonder...

I can't really put this up on Grub Report because although my bosses have professed themselves to be delighted with my site, I don't know how much delight they'd get out of the following.

The Daily Bread's own Keckler is celebrating nearly four months as a cheesemonger at "Ye Stanke Cheese Shoppe" (not its real name). Some of the stuff she's writing about makes a trip to San Francisco seem essential:

We finally got in some of that luscious chestnut honey from Forever Cheese in these adorable little Winnie the Pooh terra cotta jugs, so the other night I brought home a slab of Gorgonzola Piccante along with my very own Winnie the Pooh terra cotta jug and introduced Dr. Mathra to a special part of gormand heaven. Recently, a secretary in Dr. Mathra's department gave us a loaf of very unique German bread called Vollkornbrot ("black bread" or "full corn"). She's been in the math department for over forty years and this is the bread she used to eat in Germany during the war...It's very dark, very dense, and since it's so filled with all sort of nuts, seeds, and oats, it's also gotta be really, REALLY good for you...I had the idea of doing up a piece of the bread with a little smear of Gorgonzola Piccante (strong, yes, but more toward the nutty side of things) and a drizzle of honey. Damn, can I call them or what? The sweetness of the honey tempered the slight sourness of the black bread, but it also managed to accentuate that sourness in a very tasty way. The Gorgonzola Piccante is spicy and earthy and provides a perfect creamy layer between the chestnut honey and the black bread.

Black Mission Figs are starting to appear in the Farmer's Market, and while they're not exactly at their fullest flavor and really won't be until August or September, they sure make for a nice snack at the cheese counter when you split one open and stuff it with a small scoop of chèvre or Gorgonzola Dolce. Man, I'm just dying for August and September when the figs, tomatoes, corn, and peaches come into their full blush -- I am already composing recipes. Tonight we had to settle for bay shrimps and glistening pink wedges of grapefruit stuffed into buttery avocados and served over mâche drizzled with a citrus vinaigrette.

We're not really complaining.

It's been pointed out to me in the past that, despite being an overall positive person, I can find the cloud to any silver lining. Perhaps this is why, when A N Other said he wanted to take me for a meal at The Grill Room at five-star hotel The Dorchester, all I could think was that I had nothing to wear. (Or maybe this just means that I conform to some horrible stereotype of what modern women actually care about -- shudder to think.) Of course, I didn't let this stop me from accepting the invitation.

I did find something to wear, and regret that I worried about it in the first place. The hotel was even more fancy than I'd anticipated, but everyone was very friendly and there was not an upturned nose in sight. The weirdest thing to me about the whole experience was that they give you a choice of sitting side-by-side on a sort of sofa-type thing, or sitting in chairs that face one another. Now, it's one thing to sit side-by-side on a sofa in a pub or a bar, but in a restaurant? For some reason, that strikes me as a queer arrangement, and so I asked that we be sat in proper chairs -- which we then were, at a table in the centre of the room.

What I should have been fretting over, rather than what I was going to wear, was the pressure of being spoilt for choice as a variety of food was brought to our table on trolleys. Which of the forty different fresh breads on offer did I want? (A reliable answer here is "None, thank you.") Which of the ten desserts did I fancy? Which of the dozen handmade candies would I like to indulge in? And on and on.

For my first course, I had an incredibly good smoked trout terrine (ordered after I glanced at my "What Would Clotilde Do?" bracelet). It was served with good wholemeal (I lied to myself) bread and the tiniest jalapeño peppers I have ever seen in my life. And what an interesting choice to go with a fish terrine -- jalapeños. Somehow, it worked.

When it came to the main course, I think Mr Other expected me to go for the Grill Room's legendary roast beef -- it's the reason he keeps coming back to the restaurant. But instead, in a move that would have horrified most other haters of all things seafood (as Mr Other definitely is), I ordered another fish course: this time, a pan-fried salmon fillet with sweet potato mash, steamed vegetables and a curious English mustard sauce that was fantastic, yet didn't burn the way English mustard can. To my surprise, the fish was a little on the salty side. It wasn't salty enough to ruin the meal, but salty enough that I noticed -- and I'm not normally as shy as I should be when it comes to salt. I didn't mention it to anyone, not even Mr Other, but it was a tiny disappointment in an otherwise outstanding meal. (He did, of course, opt for the roast beef, which was served from a huge trolley brought to our table, with the carver asking Mr Other to inspect and approve the slices before plating them.)

The dessert trolley was heaving with traditional English puddings -- sticky toffee pudding, bread and butter pudding, summerfruits pudding, et al -- which, truth be told, are not my thing. So I opted for a mousse of white chocolate layered on top of a mousse of milk chocolate, with a dark chocolate sauce. It was nice, but nothing exceptional. Then again, it's hard to go wrong with chocolate, especially three different varieties. Mr Other, who has an inexplicably strong liking for almond, opted for an apricot and almond tart served with custard. He rated it highly.

And when I thought we could really eat no more, a complimentary selection of dainty sweets was brought to the table. At first, neither of us had much interest in them. But as they sat there between us, we eventually succumbed and started tasting and sharing them. I was most intrigued by the caramel physalis, but the standout candy of the lot was a sweet sesame crisp-type thing, which most resembled a single Pringle. If I had to guess, I'd say it was made with honey and sculpted prior to drying, but I actually have no idea. I'll probably spend years trying to recreate it in my own kitchen, so perhaps I should have asked someone.

Despite the salty fish, we had a really nice meal and a great time at the Grill Room. Service was attentive without being intrusive, though I wouldn't choose to dine in a place this fussy all the time; I'm not totally comfortable with someone draping my napkin across my lap for me and leaping to refill my glass whenever it gets a bit low. But I could happily eat at the Grill Room at least, oh, once a week.

One of the fringe benefits of working with the blog specialists of the Big Blog Company that I didn't mention is this: HQ has a quiet, pretty, sunny and shady back garden. And that garden has a big old barbecue -- or, as we call it back home, a grill.

A couple of nights ago, after hours of very productive work, it was time for another fantastic dinner. I headed to the amazing Bluebird Sainsbury's in the Kings Road with one of the boy hippo blog experts for supplies, and we were spoilt for choice. So it's a good thing that we were offered cold glasses of Pimms and lemonade upon entry to the store (I tell you, this is the way to grocery shop -- half-tanked on summer cocktails), as the alcohol helped to steady our nerves when facing the huge selection of possible barbecue purchases.

We finally decided on some fresh mackerel for me and the other blog chickie, while the hippo opted for a big hunk of veal. These would have been delicious almost any way they were prepared, but cooked outside over hot coals and eaten in the fading sunlight with a bottle of cold white wine...Well, how do you beat that?

All we did to the fish was squirt over lots of fresh lemon juice and sprinkle over some salt and black pepper before slapping it on the grill. It could not have been easier or more tasty. The veal needed even less doing to it, and based on the bite I tried, was melt-in-your-mouth perfection.

We didn't just eat the flesh of other animals, though. I put together some vegetable skewers -- organic chestnut mushrooms, chunks of red pepper and red onion, cherry tomatoes -- that, though there was no time to marinate them as I might normally do, made a very good accompaniment for the meat. And a block of halloumi cheese, sliced thinly and grilled until soft and charred on both sides, was excellent. (I ate mine with a lot of hot pepper sauce, which was definitely the way to go. A word of warning, though: Eat the halloumi within a few minutes of taking it off the heat, or else it loses its pliable softness and goes a bit rubbery. Good, but rubbery.)

It was a lovely meal to end all lovely meals, and the best part is, it's not even mid-June: I have many more of these to look forward to before the great British summer goes cold.

Can pasta primavera have a tomato-based, rather than cream-based, sauce? I don't know. What's worse, I don't really care. This one has pasta and it has spring vegetables, so it's pasta primavera to me. I'm sure someone will rap my knuckles if I'm wrong.

This is something I knocked up for lunch (serves two) at the weekend when I didn't even feel like cooking. And to be honest, even after it was done, I didn't feel as if I'd actually cooked anything. So I was surprised when the results were not only adequate, but really quite tasty.

Gosh, I love it when someone else cooks for me. Especially when they cook something that I would never make in a million years, because it involves hours of work, eighty-seven ingredients that cost an arm and a leg, and too much time spent at the stove.

Last week, I was treated to one such meal. The preparation took several hours, over the course of two days, and as I pondered what might be going on behind the closed kitchen door, all I could be sure of was that it was nothing I wished ever to do myself. When, on the second day of preparations, just before it was time to eat, the chef emerged from the kitchen and asked me if I knew a really easy way to peel a lot of grapes in a small amount of time, I was even more positive of this.

"This is one of the nicest meals I've ever had," I said during dinner, "but I have no desire to ever make it myself."

"Oh, I like this kind of cooking," said the chef.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because most people are lazy cooks like you, and so they appreciate the effort even more," he replied.

Quite.

The blog specialists known as the Big Blog Company want you -- if you're a coding and (in some cases) design whiz. One thing the job spec doesn't tell you, though, is that working with tBBC comes with amazing perks.

Specifically, you'll be invited to tBBC HQ for feasts like the one pictured at right (yours truly sat at the head of the table, looking very confused by these things called knives and forks). Not only is the food reliably fantastic, but as your fearless gastroblogger here has just joined the company, it's only going to get better. I don't mean to sound immodest, but I am a good cook -- and I'm better when I collaborate with my old friends and new colleagues.

Recent experiments have proved this. At the dinner pictured, Adriana Cronin-Lukas and I put together a simple fruit salad, but let it macerate for an hour or so in a shot of lime schnapps and the juice of a couple of limes. To call the result sublime would not only be a horrible pun, but entirely truthful.

Yesterday, our working lunch consisted of amazing smoked marlin, grilled spicy chicken breast, hummus and taramasalata with garlic pitta bread and a fresh loaf of sourdough, ripe tomatoes, a curiously delicious hunk of nettle cheese (no it didn't hurt to bite into it), and bowls of the most exquisitely ripe and juicy mango you ever did taste. And I haven't mentioned how the calibre of coffee they brew at HQ has turned me from someone who never, ever drank coffee to someone who only ever drinks it -- and lots of it -- when I am there.

Plus, there are always at least one or two pretty girls in attendance. And everyone loves a pretty girl, no? (I do, especially when they're as smart as the ones we invite over for dinner.)

Good food, good wine, good coffee, attractive surroundings...And you get paid. If you know of a better gig going, it just can't be legal or safe.

All you need to know about the Blueprint Café:

1. It was the first restaurant in the Butler's Wharf Gastrodome, and is upstairs from the Design Museum on the banks of the Thames in London.

2. It has an amazing view.

3. It has one of the most deceptively simple-yet-delicious starters of all time: asparagus with a poached egg, sprinkled with Parmesan.

4. I am reliably informed by a fellow diner that the Blueprint Café's veal hash is the best hash ever.

5. To this eel virgin, the smoked eel was a revelation. A more jaded, experienced eel eater, who ordered it with some trepidation, also enjoyed the eel.

6. The Blueprint Café's crème brûlée has ruined me for all other crèmes brûlées. It's the best I've ever tasted, better even than those I've had in France.

7. All of this comes at a price that, while not cheap, is not piss-takingly expensive.

8. And the surrounding neighbourhood of shops, restaurants, museums and galleries is really nice.

9. You should go there.

10. You should take me with you.

Please excuse the slightly shaky, blurry photo at right; it was taken by a friend who had just emerged from the throes of a ferocious gastrogasm. (Actually, no -- he took the photo before we'd even sat down to eat. Must have been the anticipation getting to him.)

There is a brief story behind this dish, and it's somewhat uninteresting, but I record it here for posterity: After a long day of blog expert business, which had started several hours earlier with a lunch of black pudding, turkey, salami, salad, and various chutneys, we were tired and hungry. One of us had been thinking about aubergines (eggplant) all day, and fancied something containing the gorgeous purple vegetables. I had an idea about how to make them. We went to the market. We bought some food. We came back and cooked it. It was awesome.