New Year!

It's 2010 and it's time to start the Kitchen Diaries challenge proper!

New Year's resolution: to cook every recipe in Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries over the course of the next year.

I'm going to stick to the 193 recipes fully written out in the book, not all of the little extra entries Slater makes throughout the year (a la 'Grilled mushrooms tonight, slathered with some of that garlicky French cream cheese from the corner shop and stuffed inside a soft burger bun'), mixing and matching as works for us, tweaking ingredients a little as absolutely necessary - but endeavouring to find oxtail, fresh clams, patridge, Saint-Marcellin, pigeon, sorrel, etc, in a part of West London with no decent little local butchers, greengrocers or fishmongers shops (only very very expensive ones in chichi Richmond, Kew, and Chiswick) and on a lowly botanist's salary...

So... 2nd of January (we were at the sister and brother-in-law's and then my parents until quite late yesterday evening), the kick-off...