"A sprig of fresh rosemary"

says Anthony Bourdain in his roast chicken recipe, "and don't bring any of that dried crap anywhere near my bird"! Look, Anthony, it may have been your bird when you wrote the recipe but this is my bird. See?
As it happens, I use quite a lot of dried herbs but, I dry them myself and I can tell you, the difference between fishing a random assortment of crisp, fragrant dried leaves out of a brown paper bag which lives on top of the boiler in the kitchen, and opening a jar of something dusty that smells like a variation on dried grass (I mean the lawn kind you evil people not that I have anything against the other kind except it puts me to sleep faster than anything else and on top of dinner and wine and stuff like that I might not be able to stay awake long enough to get to the computer and blog and that wouldn't do!)
Anyway back to herbs. I buy them from the supermarket and there's never quite the right amount. So I shovel them (just before they get too soggy to use) into a left over brown paper mushroom bag and fold the top over and put them on top of the boiler. At present, there's a bag of oregano, bay and rosemary and another bag of thyme and rosemary. Heavenly smells! And such fun, picking out the nicest one for whatever I'm cooking.
Now there are herbs like coriander and parsley which I think are better frozen. Slightly chopped and bunged into a small pot and into the freezer as soon as you get panicky about how long they're going to last. But the sooner after buying the better. You can tip/scrape out as much as you need for a fresh herb requirement and really, they smell pretty good. Not for salads, only for sprinkling at the last minute into curries and stews and things.
Back to Anthony Bourdain though. I love his recipes and I love the way he's extremely rude to his readers ("not that way dummy! This way!" "I know you think it would be easier to skip this bit. Just don't. I promise you it's best my way!"). I also loved 'Cooks Confidential'. Lots of swagger and bluster and rollicking, knife wielding, kitchen madness. I don't mind cooks (oops, I mean chefs) who come over really 'in your face' in their books. Much more fun than your polite Delias and Rhodes's. I prefer them not to be too passionate (passion is soooo fashionable). I like them to jump out of the book and harangue you a bit. I'm quite fond of Jamie (because actually, I think he does care about the children and the impossibly wayward students even though he is a bit passionate) and cute cuddly Rick (though I believe he's universally hated in his Cornish base town and he used to have a soppy dog with him wherever he went) and I enjoy the evil Ramsay on telly just because he's so over the top. Wheatey Feather thingie....well, he gets a bit dull after a while though he's good for a laugh now and then. I can't take too much of that noble killing ethos ! It all seems a bit contrived to me, as though he's really feeling terribly guilty abut killing animals but hopes that by making a quasi religion out of the whole business he'll quieten his conscience.
All of which is not as important as tonight's dinner which is Beef olives. (tell me when the potatoes start boiling would you please?) I so enjoy rolling the ridiculously thin slices of beef round the stuffingy stuff and then sewing it together with cocktail sticks. My recipe is a proper cooks recipe which is to say Barney told me his mum made beef olives and I couldn't find a recipe for them anywhere (pre-internet days) so I fiddled about with a recipe for 'paupiettes de boeuf'. A kind of french beef olives.* Pretty damned acceptable food if you like beef. I was wondering this evening about thin slices of fish wrapped round a lighter stuffing. In a creamy, lemony sauce. Mmmm. yes, I'll have to try that!
(hey, didn't I ask you to tell me when the potatoes started boiling? they're practically disintegrated.)
I wonder what veg you could use to do a totally veggie recipe. Cabbage leaves? Why not? In a veloute sauce :) Nuts in the stuffing.
I mean the basic requirement is just some wrapping, some stuffing and a simmering liquid (with wine in please). Oh and cocktail sticks for the fun sewing bit.
Oh I'd better go and check the dinner again. It might be nearly ready. Be back later.

*Funny thing about this recipe: Not an olive in sight.