RECEPI / This particular answer lies in the soil

FOR graduates of this column tired of following our simple recepi instructions and failing to cook paella and cannelloni, we offer a few eating out suggestions sent in by your fellow readers. Anyone travelling in the Auvergne should drop in to a local tourist office, as did Gillian Bassett of Great Barford, Bedfordshire. She picked up this menu:

'Plat du Terroir (Dish of the soil). Practical Stations for greedy holidays] Simplify your holidays] And relish our soil. For a fast lunch or dinner (not too fast]), quitely (absolutely), tastefully (a true dish of the soil]) Make your choice: Complete dish plus drink of the soil; complete dish plus drink plus dessert of the soil. All dishes issued from soil cookery or made with soil products. Greedy Auvergne welcomes you]' Gillian Bassett wins herself a recepi prize of a La Barraca paella pan.

Margaret Joscelyne, of Knutsford, Cheshire, was touched by the kindness of the owner of La Truite d'Or hotel who, without prompting, offered her and her husband a menu translated from the French. The most appetising course seemed to be the starter - terrine maison aux foies de volailles - block of houses with liver poultry.

Gabrielle Ibberson found it almost impossible to choose from the menu offered by a restaurant in Venice. In the end she went for the Shakespeare special: Tail of Toad and Yoke of Pig (as eaten by the three witches in Macbeth, presumably) followed by Trance of asia as you like it. Ms Ibberson, of Rawdon, Leeds, also wins a paella pan.

Mrs L A Dougherty of Redbourn, Hertfordshire, would like to know if there is really an aquatic form of Italian dormouse for her recipe, 'Drown Dormice'. (Place the dormice in a shallow casserole, alternating them with layers of sauce and basil). This came with a Philips Whirlpool Microwave oven. We thought it might be the Italian equivalent of toad-in-the-hole.

Finally, as promised last week, a recepi for those who have not suffered enough. Cockles in the Cataplana - obviously from the same school as last week's cannelloni - was sent in by Alan Barber of Norwich and Will Walker- Smith of Tavistock. The most amazing thing is that it apparently works.

Make fair, a lot slices onion, some pressed garlics with skin, some couted parley and a litle olive oil, some malagueta peper, some butter or margarine, some white wine and one red capsicum. After you make fair the onion, the parsley and the garlic, put the wine and the cockles, and some cold meat to. Reep that on the flame 5 or 10 minutes.

After that, you grease with margarine the two parts of the 'cataplana', then you lay in layer of cockles, two bunch of parsley, slices onion and some frit porc's meat. Then the 'cataplana' goes to the flame 15 minutes.

Thanks go to Margaret Batten of Birmingham, Jill Robertson of Twickenham, Middlesex, and Mrs J Shanks of Pattingham, near Wolverhampton, all of whom are proud owners of last week's Albadoro Cannelloni recipe.

Next week, some specialities from Laos. You have been warned.