Mixing

The thought of mixing can make the heart sink or lift depending on the skills of the mixer. Pineapple and cottage cheese; potato salad and hard boiled egg; clotted cream and fudge; the thought of all of these, you might think surprisingly, at best cause indifference and, at worst, repel me. But other mixes interest me enormously. Baking meat into pastry. Scraping the residue of a tomato salad - chopped onion, tomato pips, olive oil and the tomatoey juices - into a saucepan of just drained pasta or into gazpacho.

Croissants

I read recently that one of the larger supermarkets has abandoned selling crescent-shaped croissants and will henceforth only be selling straight ones. It sounds rather like one of those outraged articles about EU madness: you know the kind of thing - straight bananas, straight bangers etc etc.

Be that as it may (and I do think that making croissants straight in part misses their point), I am keen on the idea of alternative uses for croissants, such as filling them with clotted cream and jam. Even better than the British scone. Another favourite snack would be croissant with egg mayonnaise and crispy bacon.

Then there is the following delightful moment in the children's book Street Fair:

"Anna sat down and finished her breakfast, taking up the last bit of yellow of egg with the tip of her crescent roll; it looked delicious and John hadn't thought of that."

Creme Fraiche

Somehow, I have gained the impression that Creme Fraiche from the Normandy town of Isigny is the best of all. The only other thing I know about that particular town, never having been there, is that Walt Disney's last name is derived from it. According to Ian Fleming, that fact interested James Bond when he was reading up on genealogy in order to infiltrate Blofeld's mountain lair in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

For a very long time, I viewed Creme Fraiche as something inferior. Perhaps this resulted from our inability in France to find fresh cream; instead, it was always soured.

It always seemed to me that its sourness made it inferior to ordinary cream. Now Creme Fraiche would be one of my trio of essential creams: the other two being double and clotted. All the others - single, whipping, extra thick double - have no virtues that the trio lack, and a number of weaknesses. As Nigel Slater points out, extra thick double cream comes with a disagreeable, slightly chemical flavour. He goes so far as to say he wouldn't feed it to his cat. I would agree, if I had one.

Creme fraiche then: excellent eaten with a spoon, its richness offsetting the sourness and vice versa. But its main purpose, in my view, is as a cooking ingredient. Nigel Slater suggests adding it to a pan of cooked chicken thighs for an instantaneous and rather wonderful sauce. I agree. The cream melts into the frying pan, merging with the meat juices. Maybe add a few capers or some of those green peppercorns in brine.

Thunder and Lightning

I cannot recall where I first came across this - the label on one of the ingredients? - but as soon as I did, it fell into the category of "Can't go wrong". The ingredients are very simple: Honeycomb and clotted cream - "but don't bother about the bread please", as A A Milne once wrote in relation to the honey part. Actually, I do bother about the bread. Ideally, a warm fruit bun. It is my Christmas breakfast of choice and a fitting prelude to the excesses which are to follow.

Further thoughts about clotted cream. I am filled with horror if anyone stirs in the crust on top. On the other hand, I am always delighted to meet someone who dislikes clotted cream, such as my godfather Douglas, because then I can have his share. My aunt Ce-Ce takes the view that there is only one fitting accompaniment to clotted cream: a spoon. She wouldn't bother with the honey. Uncle Brian, on the other hand, would let me have his share of clotted cream. He calls it "cow slime". Jack Spratt...

One of the things I recall about the first ever flight I took - Glasgow to Heathrow - was being presented with a small tub of clotted cream to have with my scone. My father, who had been given one as well, proposed (is that in the middle of suggested and insisted?) that we should share one of the tubs and take the other home for my brother. I agreed but not happily. I regret to report that the tub brought home went sour.

Nigel Slater has an interesting take on it which is that a much better concept than a scone with jam and clotted cream is a croissant with jam and clotted cream. As in so many other things, he is right. Scones are over-rated, a bit virtuous, tiring to chew: possibly a useful antidote to the richness of the cream - but frankly why bother?

Mum made her own clotted cream on a couple of occasions. It involved leaving a heavy flat dish to sit for several days, so she abandoned use of one bathroom which became the dairy. The result was extraordinary: clotted cream but even more so. The nearest commercial equivalent I have ever eaten is some "raw cream" I found once at Borough Market.

I have rarely ventured into Cornwall but when I paid a short visit there a number of years ago, I was determined to take home some clotted cream. I expected to find a modestly-sized, slightly over-priced tub illustrated with pixies or similar. What I found at the junction of a steep road in a very basic grocery store was far better: a large square litre-sized tub, more normally associated in my mind with vanilla ice cream. Packed to the top with thick yellow, granular clotted cream.