Slightly strange experience driving home this evening. As always the ipod was on shuffle and I was waiting for something suitably loud and unpleasant to show up up to drive away the prospect of a meeting next week to discuss strategy and direction. Suddenly the voice of the sainted John Peel was talking to me and telling me about the next session that was to come from Maida Vale. Six by Seven were in the studio and he was asking if any one them were Nottingham Forrest fans because if they were he was going to have to take them up on the something of a thrashing they had delivered to Ipswich Town the previous week.

It was a session I had downloaded from the Six by Seven website some months ago and of course completely forgotten about. There was the usual confusion as to whether the song they were about to play was from their latest or their first album and if that made a difference. After the introductions were dealt with he said “…lets bossa nova…” and they started on their song.

It was good to hear his voice again.

The good news is that a new second hand book shop has opened in Liverpool. It is in the courtyard of the Bluecoat. It is not that new having relocated from Southport but it could be expensive particularly as it is only two minutes walk from Probe Records. I used to be fairly safe when Probe was all the way up Bold Street. It was a good 15 minute walk to get there over lunch. Now that it has moved down more into the centre it dangerously accessible and I am now on saying “Hello” terms.

I had already been to the bookshop on the lookout for Christmas presents and I went back in today. They did not have what I was looking for so I went to browse their small section of cookbooks. There was a beautiful Folio Edition Elizabeth David’s Italian Food in its green slipcase, all clean bright pages and wonderful colour illustrations but at £28 I put it to one side. I will have to continue to make do with the very old and dog eared Penguin copy I have already.

I was then taken by a book called Frying Tonight by Gerald Priestland. Seeing the name on the spine I was half hoping it might be a whole book of cooking around the theme of Carry On Screaming. I was only slightly disappointed to find that it was in The Saga of Fish & Chips, a history of the Friers Trade and our great Proletarian Finger Food published in 1972 with a great many black and white photos of people tucking into healthy looking platefuls of fish & chips. There is a slight folorn photo of a Mr Stratis of Myddleton Quality Fish Bar, Bowes Park, London tucking into a plate of his own wares. The final photo is of the original Harry Ramsden’s kitchen in 1972. I can remember going to the restaurant on a run out from Leeds 25 years ago and sitting on the tables outside to eat our Fish & Chips.

In Chapter 3 Gerald Priestland describes a trip to Leeds to visit the head offices of The National Federation Of Fish Friers and publishers of The Fish Friers Review. Pleasingly there is still a Federation of Fish Friers and if you want they publish an official guide to the country’s to Fish & Chip Shops.

I look forward to reading it.

On good Northern Foods I should also recommend The Tripe Marketing Board who will welcome you with open arms if you join their Facebook page. Looking for an inexpensive and nutritious food that’s rich in vitamins and high in protein – but not too fussy about the taste? Step this way! I have never tried tripe but I am tempted now!

I am writing about my English Grandmother on the moment so I thought I might share some of the recipes she kept in her receipt book. The book was originally kept by the cook at Cumberlands, the grand house in Surrey where she grew up. She must have taken it with her when she left, writing in it one day this recipe for Lobster Balls. I will have a go at it next time we are in Ireland.

During the war she cut out recipes from newspapers and stuck them in. There is an air of scrimping and making do with advice on how to stretch out a rations worth of corned beef.

There is one scary recipe for a Fish Hot Pot. It starts with the cook laying some already cooked spaghetti or macaroni in the bottom of a large round casserole dish. Over this place layers of filleted sole, mushrooms and cream until the dish is three quarters full. Dust each layer with celery, salt and black pepper with some finely chopped parsley. Half a sweet bay leaf can be added. Slowly pour over contents sufficient milk to which you can add two teaspoons worth of mushroom ketchup. Put on the lid and cook in a moderate oven for two and a half hours. Grated cheese can be substituted for cream if a cheaper dish is required.

Thank you Mrs. C.H. Butler of Fir Tree Cottage, Nevendon, Sandhurst.

I should have mentioned that the recipe for yesterday’s moussaka came from one of my favourite cookbooks The Prawn Cocktail Years by Simon Hopkinson & Lyndsey Bareham. The book performs exactly the job you hope it would from the name, rescuing a bunch of abandoned classics from obscurity and cliche and setting them right. The recipes don’t get a makeover as such, they are just set down as they should be, mistakes ironed out.

It starts with The Great British Meal Out which is just Prawn Cocktail, Steak Garni and Chips followed by Black Forest Gateau. It then moves into The Fifties Hotel Dining Room (including Eggs Mayonnaise, Mixed Grill and Chicken Chasseur), The Gentleman’s Club (Mulligatawny, Shepherds Pie and Toad-in-the-Hole) which could have been boarding school, The Sixties Bistro, The Continental Restaurant and so on.

Even now put me in a good restaurant and I see Prawn Cocktail and Steak and Chips on the menu I am more likely to go for those than anything else. I can remember first eating the combination on smart meals out with Mum & Dad to The Golden Grove in the wilds of the border with Wales just beyond Chester.

I followed the recipe for Prawn Cocktail on a meal for New Years Eve some years ago and it worked perfectly.

The recipe for Moussaka is in the chapter headed The Continental Restaurant and is preceded by Hungarian Beef Goulash and followed Wiener Schnitzel.

I am looking after the kids for a week towards the end of the month and I am going to feed them the recipe for Swedish meatballs to show them things can be done in a way that is not IKEA.

My copy of the book still has its Euro price sticker in the front which means I must have bought it in The Good Things Cafe. You have to wonder why more restaurants don’t sell cookbooks. You have a captive audience, replete after a good lunch and a few glasses of wine only too happy to part with more cash to buy a book to tell them how best to cook some of the food they may have just eaten. It always works for me!