lol... sounds terrible, even when I was 13. You weren't educated at Eton too, by any chance?

My own standards are high, and I understand your concern and appreciate it - welcome chef!

Any cooking tips would be appreciated. Surely your recipe for pancakes could be prepared in a serviced apartment (e.g. Fraser Suites).

I know the breakfast spread is usually solid, but sometimes I just feel like cooking myself (even if breakfast is prepaid). It makes me feel..... normal.

Self-educated at eating but certainly nowhere near as grand as Eton. I would have enjoyed all that fancy dress!

I'd been obsessed with cooking in inventive ways ..... first date with my now wife was when I cooked her a meal on my car engine ... all the distances were planned around steak "doneness" ie the number of miles for medium rare. Home to Epping Forest produced a great cooked picnic with a lovely smell of onions coming from the engine on the way.

ps. My standards are high as well!

I really hope you're serious (not that I'd think Robt760 would approve of that either - only joking chef)!

FYI I used to measure distance by how many glasses/ bottles of wine I/ we could consume (e.g. it's a two bottle trip vs. a two glass one). Of course that standard is very subjective, as proved by that guy here on FT that drunk like 12 bottles of DOM in 24 hours.

Perfectly serious! It was in the era when sports car engines were sometimes air rather than water cooled ......

Life today and pretty much always has revolved around lunch. It's the core of our lives.

Must admit I no longer drink and drive at all. Entirely through fear of discovery!

I also don't D&D. Prefer to pay $500,000 a year or thereabouts for someone to drive for me (I think that's what my wife typically spends).

Sorry to get off track Robt760 (and others)... It would be great if you hung around this thread and shared your cooking tips, starting with the pancake procedure. All other chefs are equally welcome.

Unluckily my wife is scared of my car so refuses to drive it. And she has my old car. So that doesn't work.

I'm not clear that Robt760 is still a cook as I gathered from another thread he was seeking a job as a diplomatic bag courier. Perhaps he'll clarify.

Have you cooked fish in the dishwasher too?

Talking of what can be made in a hotel - you can poach a piece of fish in a shallow dish, with water from the kettle. But please, do post what room number and where, so I can take pains to avoid that hotel room after you!!! ;)

I think you and your co-poster here are making incorrect presumptions about how you cook with a bedside teamaker. No different from a kettle - it just happened to be a bed side tea maker. Sometimes it might have been nice to use the teapot - but in my experience they were always too stained. Did you ever see how these places allowed them to get stained!? So you needed to be prepared and travel with a little picnic kit of essentials! No one would know that it had been used afterwards and it's a bit insulting to presume otherwise!

Haven't tried fish - but I wish I had. Aren't you worried about upsetting the other residents with the smell of fish?:p

I'm a chef and not a cook, as referred elsewhere in this forum. My commentary about using the kettles and such are just common sense/decency and by all means being considerate of other guests of a hotel that use the room after.

I shan't answer any further questions proposed by uk1 or as I have a strange desire to refer to him as Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange).

I think kettles and bed side tea makers are intended to boil water. You are clearly very imaginitive and feel that boiling water is offensive. Anyway, have it your way! Never let a good hissy fit get in the way of decent manners!

You are clearly having difficulties. Good luck in your new career.

Depends what sort of sauce used..

Yep, you can poach fish in a simple room, but I fail to see why that should bother future guests - then again I've never tried it. Smelly? I can't imagine how if it's fresh fish.

Nice movie, sort of. Just checking you understand the difference re: bed side tea makers vs. kettle.

I have a kettle at home which has a foil attached to the spout so you really can't put anything in there apart from water.

A bed side tea maker however is different (and was super convenient in my high school days). You could literally take the whole lid off, and have an open "urn" for which to boil eggs in etc.

I think you'll find that it's cooks and not chefs that understand the difference!:D

Robt760's indignation that I should refer to him as a cook rather than a chef is in contradiction to how "proper" chefs ie those that cook in their restaurants rather than the absent celebrity ones on TV. Many of the top UK ones are really quite anxious to be called and thought of as cooks rather than chefs - and say so.

Are we behind or in front in the UK?:D