Mz Lindor, ChrisT and Mz Emma are due here in the next half hour or so for another of our epic dinner parties. I say epic because it takes all day to clean, cook and otherwise prepare for them, so by the time you add four or five hours of eating and drinking on top of that, it certainly feels liked you've walked across Mordor and been thrown into a volcano.

Frankie E may also be joining us, depending on whether the hospital comes through for him. He's apparently been having stomach pains for the past few days and thought he should probably go and check it out. Hopefully he'll be okay, but we don't yet know whether he'll show or not.

The menu is a bit experimental, as usual. All vegetarian, except with an alternate meaty main for the carnivores. The soup's an asparagus affair with parmesan crackers. The second course is a sort of layered tower of eggplant and dumplings made from chickpea flour and buffalo mozzarella (it sounded inteersting – not sure how it's going to go though). The vege main is a pasta in walnut and gorgonzola sauce. The meat main is veal with a porcini and coffee sauce on a turnip mash. There are, of course, wines for each course.

I'm stuffed, and I could do with a feed. Had yesterday off because the cold that's been harrassing me for a fortnight (and laying Fi out for even longer) finally became too much to struggle against. Instead we lay in until about lunchtime, then did the grocery shopping and cleaned the house. Fun day off.

Guests have arrived. More later.

0 Comments: