Science and Culture

Avatar - A Good Western

Patrick Swayze (RIP)

Roberto Bolaño

Samuel Beckett

Good Food

The world's 50 best restaurants 2009, according to San Pellegrino

The world's 50 best restaurants 2009 (and 2008 ranking in brackets)

1 El Bulli, Catalonia (1)

2 The Fat Duck, UK (2)

3 Noma, Denmark (10)

4 Mugaritz, Basque Country (4)

5 El Celler de Can Roca, Catalonia (26)

6 Per Se, US (6)

7 Bras, France (7)

8 Arzak, Basque Country (8)

9 Pierre Gagnaire, France (3)

10 Alinea, US (21)

11 L'Astrance, France (11)

12 The French Laundry, US (5)

13 Osteria Francescana, Italy (new entry)

14 St. John, UK (16)

15 Le Bernardin, US (20)

16 Restaurant de l'Hotel de Ville, Switzerland (27)

17 Tetsuya's, Australia (9)

18 L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, France (14)

19 Jean Georges, US (17)

20 Les Creations de Narisawa, Japan (new entry)

21 Chez Dominique, Finland (39)

22 Ristorante Cracco, Italy (43)

23 Die Schwarzwaldstube, Germany (35)

24 D.O.M., Brazil (40)

25 Vendome, Germany (34)

26 Hof van Cleve, Belgium (28)

27 Masa, US (re-entry)

28 Gambero Rosso, Italy (12)

29 Oud Sluis, Netherlands (42)

30 Steirereck, Austria (new entry)

31 Momofuku Ssam Bar, US (new entry)

32 Oaxen Skargardskrog, Sweden (48)

33 Martin Berasategi, Basque Country (29)

34 Nobu, UK (30)

35 Mirazur, France (new entry)

36 Hakkasan, UK (19)

37 Le Quartier Francais, South Africa (5)

38 La Colombe, South Africa (re-entry)

39 Asador Etxebarri, Basque Country (44)

40 Le Chateaubriand, France (new entry)

41 Daniel, US (41)

42 Combal Zero, Italy (re-entry)

43 Le Louis XV, France (15)

44 Tantris, Germany (47)

45 Iggy's, Singapore (new entry)

46 Quay, Australia (new entry)

47 Les Ambassadeurs, France (45)

48 Dal Pescatore, Italy (23)

49 Le Calandre, Italy ( 36)

50 Mathias Dahlgren, Sweden (new entry)

Source: S. Pellegrino

A Day With Ferran Adria

by Jay Rayner

One of the pleasures of my working life – it's a very long list – is that I am forced, by dint of my job, to create a lasting record of all the fun I have. In the reviews I write, I document the delicious things I get to eat. Well this time, with my trip to meet Ferran Adrià of El Bulli, I've gone one better. The whole thing's been filmed and you can watch the result above. Or at least almost the whole thing; the one part they wouldn't let us film was me having dinner. No cameras in the dining room.

Frankly, while I knew it left a gap in the film, I was delighted. I wanted the full experience and I knew I couldn't have that with a lens stuffed in my face. Still, you can at least get a sense of the effect the meal had both on me and my companion, the chef Stephen Harris, from The Sportsman pub in Kent. The last scene, as we leave and give our considered opinion of the meal, giddy as children, is possibly the most authentic portrait you will ever see of two smug middle-aged gits hugging themselves with glee.

I will confess that I had assumed I would never get to El Bulli. Don't mistake; I did want to eat there. After all the things I'd read and heard, how could someone with as developed an interest in his dinner as me not want to go there? But I am just not the sort to strive for such a thing. The bookings procedure seemed too much a lottery – there are two million requests for just seven or eight thousand seats – for a man like me, with a back bone of marshmallow, to make the effort. I chalked it up, alongside the flight on Concord and the threesome with Cameron Diaz and Dita Von Teese, as something that was NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

And then, praise be, it fell into my lap courtesy of the publication of the new book, A Day at El Bulli. If the film doesn't completely sate your appetite for all things El Bulli while you're waiting to get hold of the book, you can read my account of my meeting with Ferran Adrià in this weekend's Observer Food Monthly.

These are indeed rich times for those of us intrigued by what's going on at the very sharpest diamond edge of gastronomy. For, alongside the Adrià book, comes the publication of Heston Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck Cookbook, a behemoth of a volume with a retail price of £100, about which more total cobblers will be written than has been written about any other book in recent history. I have been dragging my copy around the country with me for the past few days as I prepare to write a review – read wet-knickered piece of fan mail – and I can't imagine how anybody could be anything other than amazed by it.

Let's be clear: the Big Fat Duck Cookbook is only a cookbook in the sense that El Bulli is just somewhere you go to eat if you're feeling a bit peckish. El Bulli is a once in a lifetime event and so is Heston's opus. It is a document, a complete account of everything he has done or tried to do at his restaurant in Bray. It carries remarkable illustrations, fabulous photography, and is rich with detail, analysis and acute self-understanding. It also happens to be very well written.

The conventional wisdom, of course, is that what people like Adrià and Blumenthal are doing is only for the total propeller heads; that its appeal is thoroughly limited. Well let's look at the numbers. Not just those two million requests for tables at El Bulli. How about the hundreds who have booked into see Ferran Adrià speak and answer questions at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on November 24? Or the fact that, at the point of writing, Blumenthal's £100 book is standing at number 68 in the Amazon.co.uk rankings, ahead of titles by Ken Follett, Jackie Collins and Ian Rankin? Or that Adrià's book, is really not that far behind at number 195?

The point, I think, is made.

Hear that noise? It's the sound of an army of propeller heads getting excited. And I'm one of them.

The Slow Food Manifesto

The Slow Food international movement officially began when delegates from 15 countries endorsed this manifesto, written by founding member Folco Portinari, on November 9, 1989.

Our century, which began and has developed under the insignia of industrial civilization, first invented the machine and then took it as its life model.

We are enslaved by speed and have all succumbed to the same insidious virus: Fast Life, which disrupts our habits, pervades the privacy of our homes and forces us to eat Fast Foods.

To be worthy of the name, Homo Sapiens should rid himself of speed before it reduces him to a species in danger of extinction.

A firm defense of quiet material pleasure is the only way to oppose the universal folly of Fast Life.

May suitable doses of guaranteed sensual pleasure and slow, long-lasting enjoyment preserve us from the contagion of the multitude who mistake frenzy for efficiency.

Our defense should begin at the table with Slow Food.
Let us rediscover the flavors and savors of regional cooking and banish the degrading effects of Fast Food.

In the name of productivity, Fast Life has changed our way of being and threatens our environment and our landscapes. So Slow Food is now the only truly progressive answer.

That is what real culture is all about: developing taste rather than demeaning it. And what better way to set about this than an international exchange of experiences, knowledge, projects?

Slow Food guarantees a better future.

Slow Food is an idea that needs plenty of qualified supporters who can help turn this (slow) motion into an international movement, with the little snail as its symbol.

Isn´t It Amazing?

We Are No Chinese!

China regards militants from its Uighur minority as a major threat to security at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The militants are blamed for a bloody attack on a border post in western China in the run-up to the Games. Human rights groups have long accused China of persecuting the Uighurs.

Who are the Uighurs?

The Uighurs are Muslims based in north-western China's Xinjiang region. Their language is related to Turkish and they regard themselves as culturally and ethnically close to other Central Asian nations.

The region's economy has for centuries revolved around agriculture and trade, with towns such as Kashgar thriving as hubs along the Silk Road.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Uighurs briefly declared independence. The region was brought under the complete control of communist China in 1949.

Officially, Xinjiang is now described by China as an autonomous region, like Tibet to its south.

What are China's concerns about the Uighurs?

Beijing says Uighur militants have been waging a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting bombings, sabotage and civic unrest.

Since the 9/11 attacks in the US, China has increasingly portrayed its Uighur separatists as auxiliaries of al-Qaeda.

It has accused them of receiving training and indoctrination from Islamist militants in neighbouring Afghanistan.

However, little public evidence has been produced in support of these claims.

More than 20 Uighurs were captured by the US military after its invasion of Afghanistan. Though imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for six years, they have yet to be charged with any offence.

What complaints have been made against the Chinese in Xinjiang?

Activists say the Uighurs' religious, commercial and cultural activities have been gradually curtailed by the Chinese state.

China is accused of intensifying its crackdown on the Uighurs after street protests in the 1990s - and again, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

Over the past decade, many prominent Uighurs have been imprisoned or have sought asylum abroad after being accused of terrorism.

China is said to have exaggerated the threat from Uighur separatists in order to justify repression in the region.

Beijing has also been accused of seeking to dilute Uighur influence by arranging the mass immigration of Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group, to Xinjiang.

Han Chinese currently account for roughly 40% of Xinjiang's population.

What is the current situation in Xinjiang?

Over the last decade, major development projects have brought prosperity to Xinjiang's big cities.

The activities of local and foreign journalists in the region are closely monitored by the Chinese state and there are few independent sources of news from the region.

China has been keen to highlight improvements made to the region's economy while Uighurs interviewed by the press have avoided criticising Beijing.

However, occasional attacks on Chinese targets suggest Uighur separatism remains a potent - and potentially violent - force.