Structurally, not much of the 245-room property has changed, but the lobby, which has a 10-foot ceiling and no windows, is now covered in wallpaper with oversize images of red bird of paradise flowers and an “architectural mountainscape” design, a colorful concept inspired by the Mexican architect Luis Barragán that is carried through to the rooms. The Saguaro Palm Springs, 1800 East Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, Calif.; information: (877) 808-2439; or thesaguaropalmsprings.com.

When this decadent dessert lands on the menu at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City hotel’s restaurant this spring, you’ll have brides to thank.

Last year, the hotel’s catering department began presenting brides a deconstructed wedding cake with three flavors each of sponge cake, filling and frosting for 216 possibilities.

Ever since, brides no longer go outside the hotel to purchase their wedding cake, executive chef Georg Hoehn told me recently.

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More importantly to the non-wedding-planning-obsessed set, the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City, plans to put the deconstructed cake on the menu at Fyve (that’s not a typo; the restaurant’s name is spelled with a “y” for no apparent reason).

When I tried it, I had a hard time stopping all the dipping, eating and exploring. I knew right away that our boys, 8 and 11, would be jealous when I showed them the pictures I took.

So why is the deconstructed cake such a hit with brides, as I’m guessing it will be with couples, families with young kids or groups of friends?

ALSO ONLINE:  Would you ask the Beverly Hilton hotel for a refund?

For the customization-crazed Gen Y crowd, the interesting, bento-box-like presentation lets brides pick and choose flavors to create their own unique mix. It’s not only yummy, but it’s a fun thing to do – and, furthermore, it’s an experience worth sharing on Facebook.

For brides, the Ritz-Carlton starts the tasting off with a platter of nine items – each housed in a small container. The catering department doesn’t guess that the bride might like red-velvet, orange-flavored, and chocolate cake, Hoehn told me. Instead, the bride is interviewed beforehand so the hotel can better understand her likes and dislikes.

The three fillings she receives might be raspberries in simple syrup with orange zest, gianduja or mango. Like the fillings, frosting flavors could run the gamut from cream cheese to lemon to whipped cream.

“They like the fact that they can play around with flavors and not be tied down to what they thought they wanted,” hotel general manager Tod Morrow told me over lunch.

Readers: Does this dessert idea look as good to you as it does to me? Small plates and small deserts are already in vogue, so this will kick off a newer trend.

Extra legroom, early boarding and lounge access was automatically selected on
a flight to Washington – for an additional £95 – while insurance was
automatically added to bookings with Cottages4you, National Express, Saga
and Travelodge.

Low-cost giant Ryanair was found to have the most expensive telephone number –
at £1 a minute from a landline – followed closely by Wizz Air (77p), BMIbaby
(65p), Jet2.com and Air Malta (both 60p).

Wizz Air imposed the highest charges for use of a credit or debit card, at £7
per person per flight, or £56 on a return trip for a family of four, ahead
of Ryanair and Aer Lingus (£6 per person per flight), Jet2.com (£4.50
per person per flight) and BMIbaby (£3.50 per person per flight).

Chris Gray, Which? Travel’s acting assistant editor, said: “Consumers should
always have a clear choice when it comes to adding an extra item to their
purchase. Automatic opt-ins make such choices less than clear and we want to
see travel companies stop using them.

“We also want to see companies stop charging high rates for telephone
customers. One of our team was on the phone for more than an hour and his
experience will not be unique.”

It was first proposed by black Civil War veterans almost 100 years ago and took five special commissions and two acts of Congress later to make it a reality. Obama, the nation’s first black president, was joined by first lady Michelle Obama and other dignitaries.

• BLOG: Obama’s day opens at museum groundbreaking

• PHOTOS: African American museum breaks ground

“This day has been a long time coming,” the president said. “The time will come when few people will remember drinking from a colored water fountain or boarding a segregated bus … it will be a monument for all time, it will do more than simply keep those memories alive.”

Obama said that “moments like this” made him think about his daughters, Sasha and Malia, “and what I want for them to take away.”

“I want them to see how ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things … how men and women just like them have the courage to right a wrong,” he said. “I want them to appreciate this museum not just as a record of tragedy but as a celebration of life.”

Bush, who is a member of the advisory council for the new museum, said it “will pay tribute to the many lives known and unknown that so immeasurably enriched our nation.”.

The new museum will include seven levels over more than 323,000 square feet and provide a sweeping history that confronts racial oppression and highlights the achievements of the famous and the everyday life of ordinary people. Its bronze and glass facade, known as the Corona, represents traditional African architecture.

For nine years, the museum’s staff has worked to build the new Smithsonian museum from scratch, finding financial donors, scouring the nation for historical artifacts and planning the museum’s exhibits.

“This building will remind us that there are few things as powerful as a people, as a nation steeped in its history and there is nothing nobler than honoring all of our ancestors by remembering the full, rich and diverse history of America,” museum director Lonnie Bunch said Wednesday.

By Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

The National Museum of African American History and Culture is recreating the West Philadelphia hat shop of Mae Reeves, 99, one of the first black women business owners in downtown Philadelphia. Reeves is seen with her daughter, Donna Limerick, standing.

Bunch stressed the goal is to “humanize these big stories: slavery, migration, the civil rights movement.”

The museum will focus on three areas — history, culture and community — through the stories of individual people and families.

It will display medals and photos of black World War I troops donated by relatives to tell a story of patriotism, heroics and racism.

One of its prized items is an airplane used to train the famed Tuskegee Airmen, black fighter pilots who fought in World War II. The plane was donated last year by an active-duty Air Force captain who had bought the plane as a wreck, restored it and later learned of its history.

Given the complexities of race in the United States, the museum has the weight of history on its back, say those who worked to bring the museum to fruition.

“It’s important for the museum to get it right,” says Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who in 2003 introduced the legislation that created the museum. “The museum must tell the full story, the complete story. The ugly, the good, the bad and the beauty.”

When it is completed in 2015, the museum will do just that, Bunch says. As a national institution, he says, the museum will not be a black museum for black people.

Civil Rights Movement

Stories, videos, cold cases.

It will tell America’s story through a black lens, he says, starting with blacks who worked as servants or slaves in colonial times straight through to the election of the country’s first black president.

The museum’s groundbreaking arrives at a time when the nation has made strides in race relations and African Americans are engaged in every part of civic life.

“Because of the racial history of this country, the mere existence of this museum is a significant development,” says Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, professor emeritus and founder of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst. “It says a great deal about the cultural evolution of the country.”

For too long, Thelwell says, the black presence and its contribution have been “deleted from the national record.”

“It seriously distorted the nation’s history and the nation’s sense of self,” he says, adding that the creation of the museum goes a long way toward correcting that historical record.

A treasure hunt

To tell the story of America’s progress through the eyes of African Americans, museum workers have gone on a treasure hunt across the nation.

They already have collected 20,000 items and are searching for at least 15,000 more, Bunch says. The museum has acquired a dress that curators believe belonged to a female slave in the 19th century, but slave garments remain an elusive artifact.

The historical trove includes a slave cabin, shackles worn by slaves brought from Africa and personal items belonging to abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The museum will house the early version of dog tags owned by a black Civil War soldier and shards of glass from a 1963 church bombing that killed four girls in Alabama. The bombing was a turning point in the civil rights movement that helped lead to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Bunch likes to say that collecting artifacts and trying to build the museum’s exhibits without a permanent home for them is like “going through a cruise in uncharted waters at the same time that you are building the ship.”

The museum has bought items from collectors, received donations from families and found objects through their version of Antiques Road Show. Curators travel the country, putting out the word before they arrive that they’re looking for artifacts. Instead of putting a price tag on antiques as the popular TV show does, the curators examine heirlooms for their historical value.

Philadelphia collector and historian Charles Blockson, 78, donated 39 items that belonged to Tubman, including her hymn book and a lace shawl given to her by England’s Queen Victoria in about 1897. They were left to him when a relative of Tubman died.

“I kept the items under my bed for a short time, and then it came to me that the items were perfect for the new museum,” Blockson says. “This museum is special. It represents the struggles of our ancestors … The items had to go to the museum. There was nowhere else they could go.”

A century-long struggle

A museum to showcase the role of black people in American history was a long time in coming.

The call for a national museum for blacks in the nation’s capital came in 1915 from a group of black Civil War veterans and prominent business and religious leaders.

From 1916 to 1929, black leaders, including pioneering educator Mary McLeod Bethune, worked to get bills introduced in Congress to authorize the construction of memorial building, says federal district Judge Robert Wilkins, 48, an advocate for the museum.

They faced white Southern legislators who argued that blacks had contributed nothing to the USA to deserve a memorial, says Wilkins, who has written a study of the museum’s history.

Despite the objections, legislation passed the House and Senate in 1929 authorizing a memorial building that would serve as a tribute to black achievement in the USA. However, the government did not fund it, and by the time the country was fighting in World War II, the authorization was forgotten.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s brought more federal efforts to establish a national museum, including a commission and more legislation. At the time, leaders of the Smithsonian Institution did not want to oversee a separate museum for African American history, preferring instead to incorporate it into their existing museums.

There was no progress in the 1970s. In 1988, Lewis and fellow congressman Mickey Leland, a Democrat from Texas, introduced bills that simply died. Every year after that, Lewis introduced a bill to establish the museum.

His legislation went nowhere until 2003, when a bipartisan effort passed both chambers to become law. The change came when more Republicans, including President George W. Bush, threw their weight behind it.

“This is very moving for me,” says Lewis, who was beaten by angry mobs and arrested by police when he demonstrated against segregation in the South.

“This is a significant step on a very long road,” he says. “The museum says something about where we are and how far we’ve come.”

The 2003 law stipulated that Congress will pay half the $500 million cost of building the museum. Museum officials asked for $125 million of that this year, but Congress approved $75 million.

Rep. Bob Brady, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, wants Congress to provide more funding this year and every year until it is built.

“We’re still short,” Brady says. “We made a promise. They’ve waited long enough.”

So far, the museum has raised $100 million in cash and commitments from corporations, foundations and individuals.

“We have 22,000 members in every state in the U.S., and we don’t even have a building,” says Delphia York Duckens, the museum’s associate director for external affairs. The average member donation is $66. She says donors are excited by what the museum represents.

‘The maintenance of history’

Mark and Brenda Moore, of suburban Washington, D.C., donated $1 million after hearing Bunch and his staff talk about the museum as a repository for black history.

“We were enamored by the stories,” says Brenda Moore, 51, a retired nurse. “Knowing that we are involved from the beginning is so exciting.”

“It’s about the maintenance of history,” says Mark Moore, 50, the chief financial officer of a tech company.

The museum has even found support among toddlers. Tracey Mina, 46, the owner of a preschool in Brooklyn, got her young charges involved by encouraging them to collect change from their families. The 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds raised $650.

The museum will help teach children who they are and where they come from, Mina says.

“It tells them, ‘You have value,’ ” she says.

At 99, Mae Reeves, of Philadelphia, said she believes in the importance of sharing history with younger generations. Hers will be one of the stories told by the museum.

Reeves made hats, and in 1940 she became one of the city’s first black business women when she opened Mae’s Millinery Shop.

She built a diverse clientele that included women from some of the city’s wealthiest and most well-known families.

Her shop in West Philadelphia had remained untouched since she retired in 2003 and moved to St. Francis Country House, a nursing home in suburban Philadelphia.

The museum learned of Reeves’ hat shop when her daughter, Donna Limerick, mentioned it to a friend who works for the museum. The family donated the items in the shop, down to the red settee and fitting table where the women tried on their hats, so the museum could recreate the shop as an exhibit.

Reeves’ collection highlights black artistry, says Paul Gardullo, one of the museum’s curators. Her experience tells the story of black business women. The exhibit will be part of a larger one that will look at the diversity of black life in various cities, Gardullo says.

“It is important for the United States of America to have a museum like this … to let the world know who we are, what we did and where we are going,” Reeves says.

Some have even higher hopes for the museum and see it as one of the many stepping stones on this nation’s long path to racial healing.

“This museum can have a cleansing effect on the psyche of Americans,” Lewis says. “There’s still a lot of pain in America, and this will lead to reconciliation.”

Koi Group has just inked a deal with the Trump SoHo New York to operate the hotel’s ground-floor restaurant, Hotel Check-In has learned.

The restaurant is expected to open this summer, Ashley Berg, Koi’s publicist, tells me. Construction has not yet begun.

Koi also operates the popular Koi Bryant Park restaurant at the Bryant Park Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

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ALSO ONLINE:  Ritz-Carlton deconstructs the wedding cake
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Examples of Koi’s contemporary Japanese signature dishes: “Crispy Rice topped with Spice Tuna” and “Miso-Bronzed Black Cod.”

Koi Group also has a free standing restaurant in West Hollywood, Calif., one inside the Planet Hollywood Resort Casino in Las Vegas, and another in Bangkok.

Troubled restaurant space

At the luxury Trump SoHo hotel, the restaurant company is taking over a space that has had trouble finding an identity.

In April 2010, it opened when the hotel opened as Quattro, and then just two months ago, it changed to “The Restaurant.”

Readers: Comments?

In a sign of enthusiasm for the Washington D.C.-area hotel market, HEI Hotels and Resorts on Wednesday snapped up a high-end, Kimpton-run hotel in the suburbs, Hotel Check-In has learned.

HEI bought the Hotel Palomar in Arlington, Va., and is going to renovate the hotel and convert it into one of Starwood’s sophisticated, European-style Le Meridien hotels, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, which handled the sale on behalf of the owner.

The 154-room hotel’s name, in fact, changed once the sale closed earlier today.

MAKEOVER MONDAY:  Louisville Hyatt, Miami Hilton
MAKEOVER MONDAY:  Loews Annapolis, Delano South Beach
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A purchase price was not disclosed. Renovation details were not yet available, but I’ll follow up with HEI soon perhaps for an upcoming Makeover Monday feature.

The hotel’s near government offices and offices of large companies such as Deloitte, Northrop Grumman and Rosetta Stone.

Starwood’s website already shows the switch. For the night of March 7, for example, the site shows a lowest available rate of $279. Starwood also has a Westin and Sheraton in Arlington.

HOTEL CHECK-IN’s TOP STORIES:  Weekly Top 10 list

Jones Lang LaSalle’s Gilda Perez-Alvarado and Jeffrey Davis led the sale on behalf of the previous owner, JBG Companies. The hotel is the hotel component of the Waterview complex, two towers that also luxury condominiums and high-end office space. The towers opened in 2007.

“The greater D.C. (market) is one of the most important investment markets in the USA,” Perez-Alvarado told me.

The hotel was in demand mainly among private equity firms because of the limited number of luxury hotels currently for sale in the greater Washington D.C. area, she said. The management contract also allowed a new owner to change management companies.

Mostly private equity firms bid for the hotel, since it went to market late last year at a time when the stock market turned against the real estate investment trusts, she said.

Readers: Comments?

So, when the holiday company Skiworld told Telegraph Travel it had devised a
portfolio of menus for its chalets that were not only delicious but so easy
to master that they were virtually idiot-proof, a journalistic challenge
presented itself.

Which is how I find myself in the west London kitchen of Lucy Cufflin, who
runs Skiworld’s catering and trains recruits at the start of each season.
She is to teach me a handful of dishes that I can use to feed a chalet of 22
in the Swiss resort of Verbier for a day.

Lucy explains how she has distilled 25 years of cooking experience – from
heading a kitchen at a large hotel in Tignes to many seasons of working in
chalets and running a catering company in Britain – into her recipes, many
of which have gone into a whopping 350-recipe book, Lucy’s Food. I confess
to my difficult relationship with cookery books. “Quite normal,” she says.
“On average people only ever get around to trying three recipes from any
cookbook.”

The secret of a happy chalet, says Lucy, is “foolproof, fabulous recipes” that
allow staff to spend less time in the kitchen and more on the snow. And
happy hosts and fine food make for satisfied guests.

She hands me a sheaf of recipes, a two-week rota that cycles through the
season. The recipies sound good – from a mascarpone fondue to chorizo served
with a crème fraîche mash and courgettes, and desserts such as panna cotta
with orange and bay syrup. Each day has a precise timetable: for my proposed
dinner, I am told what to prepare in advance after breakfast, and what to do
at 6pm, at 6.30, 7, 7.30, 7.45, 7.55, 8 and 8.15.

We launch into the starter: a pâté of fresh and smoked salmon. I whizz up the
fish in a blender, along with some cream, milk and eggs, pour the goo into a
baking tin I’ve lined with greaseproof paper, and in a couple of minutes I’m
done. My first ever terrine – a doddle.

I then prepare the dill-and- cucumber dressing, and pause to taste the
vinaigrette mix from a teaspoon. “Try it with a piece of cucumber instead,”
says Lucy. “Tip – you never eat a dressing or a sauce on its own, so when
you’re preparing it, taste it with what it goes with.”

We start on the gratin dauphinois, peeling and slicing potatoes before frying
some diced onions to scatter between the layers. All the time, Lucy is
bubbling over with suggestions. She shows me how to make onion-chopping less
tearful by using the roots as a grip; how to fry in butter without it
turning black (mix half-and-half with vegetable oil), and extols the virtues
of sweating onions. “Don’t brown them over a high heat,” she says. “Cook
them slowly at low temperature with the lid on, and you get the most
fantastic flavour. I get chalet staff to fry onions in big batches; they
keep in the fridge for a week.”

She fixes me in the eyes. “This is probably the most important thing you’ll
learn all day.” I promise not to forget, while trying to figure out what I
can do to stop my head exploding.

We breeze through the rest of the main course – confit of duck with a dark
port sauce, carrot ribbons and broccoli florets – before tackling the
dessert, a pear tart with a simple cinnamon-flavoured pastry. I am
astonished how straightforward the recipes are – and how much mess I manage
to make, none the less.

At the end of the day, when we taste it all, I’m happier still. I am amazed
how delicate my first-ever fish pâté tastes, while the duck in its sauce of
port, orange, ginger and green peppers feels luxuriously opulent – and the
potatoes lush and creamy. As a dessert fanatic, I fall above all for the
pear tart: the shortbread-like pastry flavoured with cinnamon partners
perfectly the pears, whose flesh has turned as soft as mousse. I nearly
swoon.

Lucy suggests I practise at least once before the big night, so back in
Verbier I invite some hungry ski instructors over. I begin cooking in good
time, cut myself only superficially on the tin of duck, applaud what I
consider a skilful catch of a greased duck leg after it flies out of my
hand, and by the time I have finished – only 15 minutes behind schedule –
feel well satisfied with the extravagant mess I have created in the kitchen.
My first guest looks shocked – but then he is Swiss, and the Swiss, I’ve
found, aren’t great at chaos.

The food vanishes quickly, apart from the potatoes. I should have followed
Lucy’s advice and checked that they were fully cooked. “How interesting,”
says another Swiss guest diplomatically: “chewy potatoes.” But the rest is
hailed a success, and it is only towards the end of the meal that I am
remotely drunk – a personal triumph.

On the big day at 7.30am I am with Lucy in the kitchen at the Chalet Quatre
Saisons, with half an hour to go before the first guests come down for
breakfast. I am hyperventilating already. I halve some tomatoes, slot them
in the oven with a regiment of chipolatas and start sautéing potatoes in
batches. I am reassured by the presence of two chalet boys, Sam and Oli, who
look very relaxed as they put out cereals, tea and coffee, and take the
first orders. The third, Liam, looks even more relaxed – but then I’m taking
his job for the day.

At 8am the first guests appear, and moments later Sam appears with the first
of a string of orders – and from then I’m juggling hotplates, sausages,
potatoes and tomatoes in between scrambling eggs.

Best of all, each time I’ve served up a batch, Oli washes the pan and offers
me a clean one. I wonder if this is what has been lacking in my cookery
career to date – two energetic and cheerful youngsters to do all the
cleaning up.

^{Preparing the potato gratin is a team activity}

By 9am I am exhausted – but we need fuelling, and sit down for our own
breakfast instead. “I love this time of day,” says Sam. “It’s the only
chance we get to sit down quietly and catch up.”

Soon, though, Sam is off cleaning bedrooms, Oli is clearing up the dining room
and I am “prepping” dinner as per Lucy’s menu. Third time round, conjuring
up the salmon pâté is a breeze. Cooking for 22, though, is a team activity,
so Sam and Oli join in peeling potatoes for the gratin and pears for the
tart.

By early afternoon all three are baked and ready, and I want to go home for a
quiet coma – but Lucy will have none of it. I’m to experience the proper
chalet lifestyle, she says, “and that means going out skiing no matter how
tired you are, or how late you were up last night”.

So out we all go for a blast of mountain air and some energetic runs. Lucy and
I watch the lads fling themselves off small cliffs. I give the jumps a miss
– today is terrifying enough as it is.

At 6pm we’re back in the chalet – and the schedule says it’s time to remove
the duck legs from the cans, arrange them in the roasting tins and make the
port sauce. Half an hour later, it’s time to make the cucumber dressing and
the croûtes for the salmon; half an hour after that, time to warm the
dishes, prepare all the garnishes; and for the last half-hour before we are
due to serve, the pace ratchets up steadily. I can hear my nerves fraying.

As the guests sit down, a pattern of choreography emerges in the kitchen: we
are due to plate up the starters, yet there isn’t enough room to lay out 22
plates at the same time. We create a production line, Sam ferries the plates
out into the dining room – and by the time he has carried the last, we are
well on to plating up the next course.

The ballet continues in a similar vein for the next two courses, as a tide of
white plates surges in and out of the kitchen. My mind is numb – and when
the last plate of pear tart has gone out, it is a few moments before I
realise the ordeal is over.

I poke my head out of the kitchen, and am relieved to see everyone is not just
alive but smiling – and there’s a round of applause to celebrate.

What have I learnt? That the energy and enthusiasm of youth is miraculous;
that life can be sweet if you don’t leave everything to the last minute; and
that dinner parties – whether at home or on the slopes – needn’t be a
nightmare. And I now have a few hundred recipes I can’t wait to try out –
and this time round, I know it’s going to be fun.

Verbier essentials

Skiworld (08444 930 430 www.skiworld.co.uk)
is offering a week’s full board in Verbier at the Chalet Quatre
Saisons from £549 per person, including flights and transfers.

 Michelin-starred cooking demonstrations and wine tastings are being held next
month in Val d’Isère. Skiworld’s Tolima chalet makes a good base, with an
enhanced menu offering a range of local cheeses, regional wines and
chocolates. A seven- night stay with flights and transfers costs from £695
per person.

The recipes for the pear tart, gratin dauphinois and carrot ribbons appear
below. Lucy’s Food (Hardie Grant, £20) is available from booshops and via
Skiworld.

Recipes

Fresh and smoked salmon paté with dill and cucumber dressing

Serves 10-12

Preparation time 15 minutes

Cooking time 45 minutes – 1 hour

Ingredients

300g fresh salmon, skinned
75g smoked salmon, cut into thin strips
300ml double cream
100ml milk
4 eggs
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of dried tarragon

For the dressing:

¼ small cucumber, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dill
1 tablespoon wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon caster sugar
salt and pepper
8 slices of stale French bread

1 Put all ingredients for the paté into a blender and blend until fairly
smooth to very smooth (depending on preference).
2 Line a 1kg loaf tin with baking paper. Pour in the salmon mixture and cover
with foil.
3 Fill a roasting tin half full with warm water and place the loaf tin into
it. Cook in an oven at 180C for 1 hour until set and firm to the touch. Cook
and refrigerate.
4 Prepare little toasts using the slices of stale bread. Drizzle with oil and
cook for 5 minutes at 190C. Make a simple vinaigrette with the olive oil,
mustard, vinegar, sugar and salt and pepper, add the finely chopped cucumber
and dill to make a little salad.
5 Remove the fish in its paper and put on a chopping board. Peel back the
paper from the sides of the terrine and slice.
6 To serve, place a slice of the salmon paté on a plate, place 2 little
toasts to one side, and drizzle the cucumber dressing on the other.

Confit of duck with dark port sauce

^{Confit of duck leg}

Serves 4

Preparation time 15 minutes

Cooking time 25 minutes

Ingredients

4 confit of duck legs
100ml of orange juice (from a carton is fine)
100ml port
100ml water
1 chicken stock cube
1 tsp green peppercorns in brine (drained and chopped finely)
2cm cube ginger, peeled and grated
salt and pepper
½ onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon soy sauce
25g butter
1 teaspoon cornflour mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water in a cup
sprig of fresh parsley to garnish

To heat the duck:

200ml water

1 chicken stock cube

1 Remove the duck from the tin and separate into leg portions. Wipe off as
much fat as you can. Keep some of the fat in a jar in the fridge to use for
cooking potatoes, etc. Put the duck portions into an ovenproof dish. Put the
water and stock cube into the dish and cover with foil. Bake at 190C for 30
minutes.

2 Meanwhile, make the sauce. Put all the other ingredients apart from the
butter, parsley and cornflour into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer
without a lid until you have only 200ml left and then sieve the sauce.

3 Add the cornflour and re-boil. Adjust the seasoning and leave to one side.
This can be made ahead of time and re-heated in the saucepan.

4 Just before serving, reheat the sauce, add the chilled butter cut into cubes
and stir all the time as it melts. This will thicken the sauce further and
add a gloss.

5 Put the confit of duck onto the centre of a warmed dinner plate, place a
pile of carrot ribbons on top, and spoon over the dark port sauce. Garnish
with a large sprig of parsley or other fresh herbs.

Gratin Dauphinois

Serves 4

Preparation time 20 minutes

Cooking time 1½ hours at least

Ingredients

½ onion, peeled and finely chopped
25g butter, plus a little extra
1 tablespoon oil
3 very large potatoes, peeled/thinly sliced
125ml milk
125ml cream
1 clove garlic peeled and crushed
100g grated Emmental cheese
salt and pepper

1 Place the onion, butter and oil in a saucepan over a gentle heat with the
lid on. Allow the onions to cook for 5 minutes or until they are soft and
translucent.

2 Butter the inside of an ovenproof dish and arrange the potatoes, scattering
the onions between the layers.

3 Put the milk, cream, garlic, salt and pepper into the empty onion pan and
bring to the boil. Pour over the potatoes so the liquid comes ¾ of the way
up the sides of the dish. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 1 hour at
190C.

4 Lift off the foil and stick a knife into the potatoes to see if they are
cooked. They should be absolutely soft; if they are not cooked through, put
them back in the oven, covered, for a further 15 minutes and test again.
When they are completely cooked through, remove the foil and sprinkle with
the grated cheese.

5 Return to the oven, this time uncovered, for a further 30 minutes. At the
end of this time the potatoes should be golden brown with a thick creamy
sauce. If they look dry add a little more cream, if there is a lot of thin
liquid, spoon some out and discard.

This re-heats brilliantly. Make in the morning, or well ahead of time. They
can keep warm for up to an hour; alternatively, reheat at 190C for 30
minutes uncovered with the cheese sprinkled over.

If re-heating, only cook the potatoes up to the point where the cheese topping
is added. The potatoes must be cooked through or they will go brown as they
sit during the day partially cooked.

Carrot ribbons

Serves 4

Preparation time 10 minutes

Cooking time 2 minutes

Ingredients

4 carrots

1 Peel the carrots and discard the peelings. Once peeled, continue to use the
peeler in the same way producing lots of peelings of carrot. These can be
done ahead of time and stored in a bag or bowl in the fridge until needed.

2 Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and literally a couple of minutes
before serving put the carrots into the pan. Bring back to the boil and
drain

3 Serve immediately in the centre of a warmed plate on top of the duck leg.

Serve with tender boiled broccoli florets

Pear and cinnamon tart

Serves 10

Preparation time 15 minutes

Cooking time 35-45 minutes

Ingredients

For the pastry:

250g plain flour
125g caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
125g butter, cut into cubes
4 tablespoons cream

For the filling

5 well-shaped pears
icing sugar and whipped cream, to serve

1 Cut a circle of baking parchment 30cm in diameter. Put the flour, sugar,
cinnamon and butter in a bowl and rub the fat and flour between your fingers
and thumbs until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs in texture. Add the
cream and squeeze the mix together until you get a pastry dough.

2 Turn out onto a floured surface and knead slightly. Divide the pastry in
two. Roll one half out on the piece of baking parchment and lower into the
25cm diameter tin. Fold the paper behind the pastry and ease it into the tin
and up the sides, pressing the pastry back into place over the folded
parchment. Trim the pastry to 3cm high to stop it flopping forwards.

3 Peel the pears, cut them in half lengthways and cut out the core, leaving
them in halves. Lay them on the pastry, cut side down pointing towards the
centre.

4 Roll out the second piece of pastry and roll around the pin to move it.
Unroll it over the pears and allow it to nestle over them. Press the edges
together and trim the top piece so it fits. It does not matter if this
breaks, simply push bits in where you have gaps or breaks, sticking it to
the other pastry with a little water.

5 Bake at 190C for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and
allow to cool. This can be made up to 8 hours ahead. To reheat from chilled,
pop into the oven for 10-15 minutes.

6 To serve, slice the tart through the middle of each pear so that each slice
contains 2 half-pears. Top with whipped cream and a sprinkle of icing sugar.