Submitted by Tina Allen, Sep 3, 2008 17:05

I cannot comment on the book because I have not read it, but feel compelled to comment on that old chestnut "heavy, a bit bland, with too much emphasis on butter and cream (rather than on veggies or herbs) for flavoring". It was not until I relocated from England to the US about 13 years ago that I really knew that bland and heavy food existed. I also did not realize that the a vegetable on an American menu is just a potato in some form or other. Where is my cauliflower, broccoli, runner bean, parsnip, swede, turnip? The best offering I ever got was potato (in some form or other) and a few courgettes (zucchini) in varying colors and perhaps a few julienne of carrot (so undercooked that I felt like I was eating the pet rabbit's food). Food critics really need to get over this idea that English food is heavy and bland. Where are they eating?!? I have just had a short vaca in England and enjoyed beautiful fresh vegetables, cooked to perfection, and of course, a lot of tasty cheese -none of that bland stringy stuff that I have to endure here. It was so delightful not to be served that dreadful soapy candlewax called "Swiss" and that hard, bland chalk referred to as "blue" and that tasteless white goo called Mozarella. Wake up everyone and smell - not the roses - but the aroma of fine cheeses, endless selections of vegetables and real potatoes - oh, how I miss the new potatoes and Jersey Mids - such texture and flavor. I have to ask - what happens to the new potatoes? I do find small red potatoes that look a little like new potatoes but are tasteless, just like their gargantuan brothers.

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