This is still my stuff.

Goose fat. That's the secret, lashings of goose fat. And when you've par-boiled the potatoes, swing 'em around in a colander so they scuff up niiice. Medium oven for an hour, regular turns, lightly steam the veg - then: stuff the whole lot in your head, quick as you can. No-one'll ever know it was there.

I took it out of the ’fridge early, rubbed on some oil and black pepper, and left it to breathe for a while. The plan was to make the best approximation I could of Jack O’Shea’s advice by giving this cross-cut onglet about 90 seconds on each side, as close as I could get it to as high as the grill would go, and then letting it rest for a good five or six minutes. It wasn’t the thickest slice I’ve seen, so I was a little concerned about over-cooking it; as it turned out, had I been in more squeamish a mood today, it probably could even have borne another 30 seconds each side, but the result was perfect for my currently vampiric mien, and the flavour - obviously largely due to the careful maturing at the ’Pig, though enhanced, I do believe, by Mr. O'Shea's tips - was quite extraordinary: a deep, broad beef, smooth and round, with a tangy edge of offal iron. This cut’ll get nowt but praise from me.

One of my leaving presents from POKE was a huge bag of extremely good steak. Fillet, ribeye, T-bone, sirloin, and one of the biggest rump steaks I've seen, matured for 45 days. Not content with that, amongst other things (including a monster Friday night out) they also very generously indulged me with the gift of a day's beef butchery course at the Ginger Pig in Victoria Park. To say I'm eagerly awaiting it doesn't really begin to encapsulate my feelings about it - mild trepidation mixed with delight and excitement would go some of the way. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy these pre-cut steaks enormously. Thanks, Pokers!

There was a seriously cadaverous feel to this onglet I had from the usual place last week. Something about the texture, the sinewy, raw viscerality of it, spoke to me of torture, death and decay. Bloody tasty, though.

I know I’m always going on about meat, but, well, that’s because it’s so great. When it’s good, that is — and when you buy it from the Ginger Pig’s new Hackney branch, that’s exactly what it is.

The shop itself is nicely understated; no airs and graces, just a clean, fresh, white room with lots of light, a blond wood floor and, by way of an entirely natural, unassuming, and gently confident assertion of pedigree, a glass door through to the meat store. The huge variety of wares on display is beautifully presented and incredibly tempting; when the lady serving me and I had sorted out our bacon business and she asked if there was anything else I wanted, I had to restrain myself from embarking on a pork–belly and fore–rib spree.

Instead I contented myself with this prime fillet steak, by comparison with other purveyors of meat hardly a snip at around £8, but boy, was it worth it. I wouldn’t have expected myself to describe a fillet as “buttery”, but that’s what it was, in texture and even in taste; the blandness to whose acceptance we’ve become inured in seeking tenderness elsewhere was replaced by a soft, round and, yes, buttery flavour in the front of the mouth, reinforced on further rumination by a big, broad beef bouquet of the type one normally associates with a large joint.

Fantastic stuff, but I couldn’t help but be a little saddened by the thought that this is really what we should get everywhere. Without wanting to take anything whatsoever away from the Ginger Pig’s wonderful produce or principles, it’s a sad indictment of the current state of affairs that this should stand so far ahead of the rest of the processed, packaged, sanitized dross that we as a society have learned to expect, simply by virtue of practicing the sort of artisan husbandry that can only derive from a passion for providing the very best.