The Editor's Hospitality Blog

Do you ever hit a creative brick wall, when you just can't conjure another recipe from even the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind?
It happens to us all - I have an article that needs to be written by the end of the weekend, and I still haven't been able to come up with a suitably impactful first line. Luckily for you, help is at hand.

Caterersearch's recipe channel offers hundreds of winning recipes from the country's pre-eminent chefs, making menu development a cinch on even the most brain-dead days.

With Blackburn Rovers meeting Manchester United in an FA Cup semi-final this weekend, why not check out our recipe for Lancashire hotpot from Northcote Manor's Nigel Haworth?

Next Monday (May 14th) sees Caterer and Hotelkeeper's Chef Conference at London's Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel.

The event kicks off with a keynote speech from restaurateur and head of the School Food Trust, Prue Leith, after which there'll be demos from the likes of Tom Aikens, Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing and John Campbell of the Vineyard at Stockcross.

The evening's gala dinner promises to continue the star studded theme, with courses from Simon Young of the Jumeirah Carlton Tower, Gleneagles' Andrew Fairlie, Hywel Jones, executive head chef at Lucknam Park in Wiltshire, Nigel Haworth of Northcote Manor in Lancashire and Andrew Turner of Pennyhill Park in Surrey.

As well as the chance to sample dishes from these stellar chefs, there'll be plenty of opportunity for networking with other delegates and catching up with old friends.

So click here now, and book your place. You know it makes sense ...

This week, London's Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel hosted the 2007 Caterer and Hotelkeeper Chef Conference. Here are a few of the memories buzzing around my head, in no particular order.

* Jumeirah Executive Chef, Simon Young and his team deserved all the plaudits they received in the bar after dinner for pulling together a spectacular conference lunch and a magnificent dinner. As I was speaking to Simon, two other chefs approached him to tell him they had just enjoyed the greatest banqueting dinner of their lives. Praise indeed ...

[By the way, Simon is hosting a dinner in July in support of the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation, set up by Executive Chef at the Mandarin Oriental, David Nicholls. The event is a sell-out, but you can find other ways of supportig the charity at http://www.nichollsfoundation.org.uk/.]

* Chris Galvin, our roving reporter in the kitchen, whose chef interviews were beamed to diners through the evening, can look forward to a thriving career in TV, if he ever decides to step away from the stove.

* Prue Leith, chair of the School Food Trust, made an interesting point when she said she had never known a child who didn't enjoy cooking. She' s right - I, for one, fondly remember helping my mum mixing dough for Welsh cakes when I was a nipper. So why don't more kids go into catering careers later on in life?

* Charles Boyd of Chester Boyd was proudly sporting a Charlton House lapel pin - interesting!

* Agar is made of seaweed and sets at room temperature.

* English asparagus is spectacular this year.

* Santes des chefs rarely run smoothly ...

* The guy that won the Villeroy & Boch canteen of cutlery was on a motorbike - I hope he managed to get home okay.

* I want to sample a gull' s egg, having seen Phil Howard of two-Michelin-starred the Square add one to his wonderful plate of asparagus and wild salmon belly.

* I just remembered that I am provisionally on the guest list for Rob Kirby's spring fishing trip to Scotland! Will I survive to tell the tale?

* Researching our speakers before the conference, I spent a happy hour reading through Rowley Leigh's FT columns online - especially his interview with Fergus Henderson.

Do you have any recollections you would like to share? If so, why don't you respond to this posting?

The latest series of the BBC's Great British Menu ended over the weekend, with Sat Bains, Mark Hix and Richard Corrigan combining to create a four-course meal showcasing the best of British ingredients at a banquet at the British Ambassador's residence in Paris.

The success of the show - and the seismic news that Delia Smith is about to re-enter the fray with a new series - got me thinking about my favourite foodie shows on the box. Here they are, in no particular order. Agree? Disagree? Either way, let us know.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was reading a book called The Perfectionist, about the life of three Michelin-starred French chef, Bernard Loiseau. I'm about three quarters of the way through it now, and thought I'd pass on what I've learnt so far.

Tragically, Loiseau's life story is defined by his suicide, in 2003. The owner of the Côte d'Or restaurant in Burgundy put a shotgun to his own head, rather than continue to bear the constant pressure of retaining his three Michelin stars.

Is The Perfectionist a good book? For me, it's at least a hundred pages too long, and the prose can at times be terribly overworked (quote: "the black truffle … does for French cuisine what a Wonder Bra does for an ambitious ingénue …"!) But as an insight into the world of French haute gastronomie in the second half of the twentieth century, and, in particular, Loiseau's complex world, Rudolph Chelminski's book works both as history lesson and cautionary tale.

I've now finished The Perfectionist, Rudolph Chelminski's account of the life and untimely death of three-starred French chef, Bernard Loiseau. What a sad story.

In my first posting, I described how the first half of the book introduces Loiseau within the context of the great French chefs of the past fifty years. In the second half, the author cements the image of a chef whose gastronomic confidence and lack of personal self-confidence seem to flourish in tandem. We learn of his invention of a system of binding sauces with vegetable purées; and one of his defining creations, frogs' legs with garlic purée and parsley juice, is described in enlightening detail. But at the same time we witness him working ever harder to hone his offering, becoming overly embroiled in building works at his restaurant and incurring mounting debts ("Bernard had mortgaged his future to Michelin").

Had you realised that its been six months since Valentine's Day? No? Not on my radar either.

But, apparently, today is the most unromantic day of the year.

According to Accolade, "a luxury new cooking appliance brand from Stoves", the last week in August has the fewest references to "I love you" on the internet, the University of Sydney carried out a study on moods and found that Wednesday was the lowest day of the week, people are currently suffering from post-bank holiday syndrome, and sales of Champagne generally take a plunge in August.