‘Brèves de comptoir’ are authentic quotations collected from everyday life and particularly gossips at the bistrot. Absurd borders on humour or poetry, news and sometimes philosophy. Mine are of course food oriented, a concentrate of what feed my life, what I swallow every day, what I read, hear, try, taste… In London and the world…

• 80 % of orange juices are made in Brasil. 42000 oranges are pressed per minute.
• Coca cola formula, when a journalist is trying to find the real coke’s formula in Atlanta and find so much more behind the American giant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owl59XeknxU

• South African flooding left some farmers with up to 28 per cent of crop loss earlier this year. In addition to help them Waitrose gives the opportunity to members of the Waitrose foundation worldwide to sell their weather-blemished fruits and vegetables at a cheaper price…
• The Indonesian food newly available in UK is the Tempeh. From the island of Java, made from local variety of soybeans.Eaten for hundreds of years it’s nutritious and vegan. Tempeh is a mushroom-fermented soyfood which shelf life is only one day as it’s live food. Available from Planet Organic the Tempeh Curry has been made under scrupulous hygiene conditions and captured in a can at the right time to stop the fermentation. For the real Javanese Tempeh is added a Javanese sauce. £3.10 for 300g. http://www.doctortempeh.com/nutrition/nutrition.htmlhttp://www.doctortempeh.com/nutrition/nutrition.html

• The new restaurant 100% no waste in UK will be opening in Brighton. Flour will be mild on site, food delivered with zero packaging and toilets flushed with used water from the coffee machine. All of us should find such a great inspiration on that. As what, with a bit of effort, it’s possible. A full post will be coming soon. Silo Restaurant. http://silobrighton.com

• China is the world largest producer of tomatoes. It’s confusing as tomato is not a common ingredient in Chinese cuisine. They actually make a lot of tomato paste for exportation.
• Wonderful and terrifying at the same time is the first restaurant entirely runs by children. Supervised by adults, the little ones who wear chef’s white and hat use easy to follow picture-recipes. It’s so successful that, a bit like Nobu, you have to make reservation way ahead to be able to get a table. Kinderkookafe (translated as Kids’Kitchen Café), Amsterdam. http://www.kinderkookkafe.nl/

• If you refuse to chose between cheese and pudding the new Paul A Young’s creation is just for you. The star chocolatier invented the chocolate and Stilton truffle. Not for the shock of it as he doesn’t need it for people to talk about him but apparently, really for the combination of flavours. I know… I am skeptical too. http://www.paulayoung.co.uk/

• Cheese talking, US produce Parmesan, Feta, Gorgonzola… The EU wants to protect some of their 145 names for food invented in Europe. They argue that feta cannot be feta if not coming from Greece.
• ‘Big appetite’ is the work of a Seattle born food photographer. It’s sweet. See Christopher Boffoli’s exhibition in ‘Pop of Color’ in Seattle or online http://bigappetites.net/