I love the 1930′s style of these kitchen timers – if any of my sister is reading please add to your ‘far-to-early’ Christmas present list!

Two timers, one counting down the hour the other 20 minutes, are priced at £29.95 from CooksParaphernalia.co.uk. They also do a similar three timer version (20, 60 and 120 minutes ) at £39.95 but the clock faces are in white rather than the more-retro colour of the 2 face version. I am also rather taken with the black and white salt and pepper grinders that come in at £34.99. Also these kitchen scales, pricey at £98.99, could also be added to my Christmas list… do the words ‘wishful thinking’ spring to mind?

CooksParaphernalia have a huge range of gifts, kitchen equipement, pots, pans and knives.

Today’s Sunday Times includes a Heston Blumenthal DVD where the famous chef ‘shows you step by step how to create some perfect accompaniments to his perfect British dishes’.

The recipes are to be featured in the Style section from today and over the next three weeks. The recipes/instructions today cover making your own sausages, onion gravy and the mash; with the Guinness mustard featured on the DVD. Then there is the ‘Best Treacle Tart and Ice Cream In The World’ with the Banana Tuile and Coffee Ice Cream featured on the DVD. Interestingly it uses frozen bananas.

Next weeks issue covers “Heston’s search for perfection: Black Forest Gateau and chocolate sorbet”. His new television series begins a run on BBC2 this Tuesday.

My local, The Baskerville Arms, has been awarded the Good Pub Guide’s County Dining Pub of the Year. The pub has always had a local reputation for excellent food but I have never eaten there. I know… the shame…

It all feels quite homely, but in a smart way, with some chintzy touches such as a shelf of china dogs. Bar food is extremely good with absolutely nothing that is not made on the premises: home-made soup (£4.50; their stilton soup is much liked, £5.50), muffins with toppings like their own organic gravadlax, pickled quail eggs, marinated anchovies and mustard sauce (from £6.50), open omelettes (from £6.50), open sandwiches made with their own bread (from £6.95), salad such as thai-style tiger prawns with a lime and coconut dressing or niçoise with fresh tuna and fresh anchovies (from £6.95), herbed sausages with rich onion gravy (£7.90), honey-baked gammon with two free range eggs (£8.50), steak and kidney pie (£8.90), and hand-made burger (£8.95); also, more elaborate choices like tomato, basil and shallot summer pudding with crème fraîche (£6)…

The Baskerville Arms
7 Station Road, Lower Shiplake, Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire RG9 3NY
Tel: +44 (0) 1189 403332
The pub is right next to the railway station.

Trifolata is the new pizza from Pizza Express. An unremarakbale piece of news until you get to the bit about white truffels. They are actually going to be serving pizza topped with white truffle. After caviar white truffle is the most expensive ingredient in the world, clocking in at thousands of pounds per kilo.

An £8.80 pizza of course is going to be bulked out with other mushrooms – porcini, portobello, shitake, oyster and closed cup.

“Here’s some handy pub trivia for you: the white truffle is the rarest of all truffles and the second most expensive food, pound for pound, after caviar. These days, you won’t be able to find one unless you take a specially trained truffle hound to the Piedmont forests in northern Italy and let it loose. The new Trifolata pizza – which features a drizzle of luxurious white truffle oil – is pretty exclusive. Featuring five kinds of mushrooms – porcini, portobello, shitake, oyster and closed cup – and smoked mozzarella, this pizza is must-try dish…”

And then you realise that they are not actually going to use white truffle shavings but an infused olive oil.

Today Billingsgate gets though 480 tonnes of fish a week, although in its heyday the figure was nearer 400 tonnes a day. Anyone can buy fish from the market; the London Paper ran an article the other day and gave some handy tips on doing so

1. Billingsgate wakes up early in the morning but the best time for the public is from 6:30am. It is generally all over by 8.
2. Prices vary from stall to stall, but all sell for a fraction of supermarket prices.
3. For rock bottom prices try last thing on a Saturday morning when the sellers will be trying to shift the remainder of their stock before the week’s end.
4. Buy in bulk – that’s what freezers are for.
5. Be prepared to gut and fillet the fish yourself as the stall holders will not do it for you.
6. The freshest fish have sparkling eyes with a gold outline around the iris. Anything dull or sunken is a sign of age.
7. The freshest fish also have a thin sheen or slime on the body, they should be gleaming.
8. Oily fish should be be in rigor mortis when you buy them; they shouldn’t flop about.

Billingsgate Fish Market, Trafalgar Way, London E14. Open Tuesday to Saturday 5.00am – 8.30am.

There is a Seafood Training School offering both morning and evening courses. The full day Knife Skills program, for example, costs £165, or £190 if you want to include a formal tour of the market. You get to keep the fish you tackle during the course.