Instructions: My three favourite ways to start a meal are with goose or duck liver preferably served cold or scailops or some form of salad. By the latter I mean a dish served either cold or tiede such as a smoked salmon salad a lobster salad or a foie gras salad dressed with a vinaigrette a ffagrant oil a light butter sauce or demiglare and accompanied by chopped truffles artichoke or asparagus or fine French beans and a smaD bouquet of interffting leaves.

Thick soups are more about nourishment than about the first act of a well balanced meal.This is why they have gone out of fashion in restaurants. Chunky vegetable soups with lots of grated cheese make wonderfil onedish family feasts particularly on a cold blustery evening but they play no part in fine dining. Gastronomy has moved on since the definitive laws laid down by the Larousse Castronomique declared that soup was always the first course at dinner.

The three soups for which I give recipr here consomme of mushroom mussel soup and langoustine soup are essentially distillations and concentrations of heavenly flavours. I therefore prefer to serve them in nny quantities as appetizers. The aim is to titi;;ate the senses which is why in France they are called amusegueules or amusr bouches.

We try to offer as varied a selection of starters as possible. I am extremely fond of goats cheese particularly the Crottin de Chavignol which can be served grilled with a salad or in a ravioli with a red pepper coulis. Indeed it is a very versatile alternative that is increasingly popular especially with vegetarlans.

Another highly versatile ingredient which is also easily available is salmon. The farmed variety although it will never match the quality of wild salmon is getting better and better and increasingly resembles the real thing. You can consequently with much satisfaction cook with it the whole year round. It can be eaten raw lightly smoked with various aromatic woods. It can be marinated and eaten cold with mayonnaise. It does not need much cooking and best of all it marries well with a wide array of sauces.

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