Oh, about the fennel. I made some fennel soup in the weekend, I used one bulb of fennel, 4 potatoes, one carrot, some onion, some chicken stock, some white wine and some cream. Bled the chopped onion first, then added all the other ingredients diced except for the cream, and at the end I put it through a food processor and added the cream and seasoned with salt and pepper. Turned out pretty nice. Could have had another fennel bulb in it even.