ABOUT THIS COOK:

Interested in recreating old dishes, from, say Escoffier or the Molokhovetz books.

• What is the strangest food you have ever eaten?
  perhaps smoked horse rectum sausage in Kazakhstan or the roadkill pit-roasted agouti in Quintana Roo, Mexico

• What do you cook when home alone?
  Sichuan slippery noodles, things I'm not ready to serve guests...

• Your most treasured kitchen possession:
  hand-cranked spice grinder

• The ideal number of guests for a dinner party is:
  myself plus seven