Today is my birthday and I am having some friends over to help ease the pain of becoming even more knackered and crapulent. I don't want to spend the evening tied to the cooker so I have made something where all the preparation can be done in advance: a daube. This is beef and bacon stewed up in white wine and beef stock with a few vegetables added for extra flavour. I started cooking it this morning, as stews are often better if they are cooked a long time. All it needs now is to be warmed up when my guests arrive and served with some pasta. The recipe I used comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's excellent River Cottage Meat book. I highly recommend this book as a great source of recipes and philosophy on cooking meat.

David.

Even though I am an atheist I still think that Christmas is a good excuse to have a blow-out meal of lovely meat. I cannot stand turkey, it is so dry and flavourless, so I cook a more traditional Christmas bird: goose. I recommend as a good source of free-range geese this place. I got a wonderful goose from them last year that was full of flavour and quite delicious. They also sell huge free-range chickens that are similarly lovely. I've just put my order in for a 4.5kg goose and a 4.5kg chicken; this should keep us full for a few days.

David.