A matter of taste...

And so another beautiful, blustery, bright and bouncy, autumnal day here in Cardiff. Time for another test drive of my new Nike+ Sportwatch. Again, it locked on to the pedometer in no time and within seconds had found those pesky global positioning satellites. It's facinating watching the distance increase and the pace waver as you run. After nearly getting run over by a cyclist, I decided it would be wise to look where I was going rather than at the ever changing display on my watch. And, as I concentrated on the run rather than the running watch, my mind drifted...

Taste accounts for a lot of the decisions we make in life. Taste is a badge we wear with pride; a facet of ourselves we show to the world. I have good taste whilst you have bad taste. Whether that's taste in foods or taste in wine, taste in furniture and decor, taste in music, taste in men or taste in women or taste in both (Rosie Bothways) and, not forgetting, taste in style and the clothes we wear.

When it comes to fashion, Karl Lagerfeld (right), the Chanel designer, thinks one of the biggest mistakes people make is buying clothes that don’t flatter their figure or fit properly. He advises, “Buy what you know works for your body and only buy something if it fits well.” He also emphasises the importance of keeping things simple, “Never underestimate the power of a simple T-shirt, jeans and a jacket. It always looks very chic." Taste is personal and entirely subjective and, as Mr Lagerfeld proves, there's no accounting for it.

Taste is often individual but can also apply to groups of people such as nations and ethnic or religious groups. There is a perception that the Italians have a certain taste, as do the Germans, Spanish and (let's not forget) even us British. We consider Scandanavians to have a taste for pickled fish and good functional design whilst the French to have a taste for molluscs and plush decor.

Imagine meeting a Frenchman who didn't enjoy a plate of escargot! My ex is Danish and (uncharacteristically) he doesn't like pickled fish, whereas I'll happily eat rollmop herring for breakfast (followed by a glass of Gammel Dansk, "...to make the fish swim"). One thing he and his family did turn me on to was cheese and jam. It doesn't matter what cheese or what jam; they all taste pretty good together - although there are some magic combinations. There can be no finer breakfast than a sweaty brie spread over crusty toasted bread with a liberal spoonful of blueberry jam.

Now, some people turn their noses up when I mention the combination of cheese and jam but, in essence, it's only that age old combination of fat and fruit. Consider pork and apples, duck and oranges, strawberries and cream, rhubarb crumble and custard and, of course, lemon cheesecake. And what do you think cheese and tomato is if it's not fat and fruit?

If there can be no finer breakfast than the combination of cheese and jam, then lunches don't come much better than a bacon and banana sandwich. There's something about the salty crispness of the bacon combined with that soft sweetness of the banana. I've been trying to get Ozzy from the excellent Sandwiched In The City in Cardiff to include this on his menu but no luck yet.

Elvis is reputed to have enjoyed a bacon, banana and peanut butter sandwich but I don't want to die of a heart attack whilst sat on the loo, so I'm gonna skip the peanut butter:

Ingedients
Crispy bacon
Banana
Raw spinach or lettuce
Sprinkling of nutmeg
Crusty bread

Method
Combine and eat.

Just shut up and try it.

And my run...? Well, it was enjoyable for the beautiful weather bathing the Bay this afternoon. I did 4.94 km in 26'46" at an average pace of 5'25"/km. It's not gonna win me any prizes but it aint bad.