OK the experiment is into week three: this week’s five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful:
- Cats. Harry the Cat has been especially friendly this week, which is nice. He’s resting next to me on my desk as I write this, just as in the photo. He’s not so welcome though is when he throws up on the bed at 6am!
- Lamb & Kidney Pie. This has become one of Noreen’s specialities. Make it like Steak and Kidney only with lamb neck fillet instead of beef: cheaper and tastier.
- Parrots. Or rather Ring-Neck Parakeets, which seem to be spreading rapidly around London. We regularly have them in the garden — fun and colourful. And yesterday driving out of central London at dusk we saw several groups, one of 100 birds, flying off to Wormwood Scrubs where there is a nightly roost of 2500 birds.
- Vegetables in Cheese Sauce. A much loved favourite of my childhood when it was usually either runner beans or butter beans, we recently resurrected this as a quick, simple and cheap meal. Cook the veg (anything of your choice, root veg works well as do beans, cauliflower, fennel, potato, Jerusalem artichokes etc.) and serve with a good thick cheese sauce. Real comfort food.
- Wild Boar Sausages. Eaten yesterday with red cabbage at the Queen’s Head & Artichoke in Albany Street.
A foodie week, then. And off shortly to eat a pork version of Osso Buco (known here as Osso Piggo). Mmmmm …