saturday scraps

I worry that I rely too much on living vicariously through the Guardian's 'Weekend' magazine. Last night I made Mel read Victoria Moore's column, mostly for the wisdom and because I love to read her writing, but also for this comment: 'Roald Dahl once wrote that "to drink a Romanee-Conti is like having an orgasm in the mouth and nose at the same time" '.

Make mine a Romanee-Conti please, this I have to try...

I also realised that I have gone beyond the food when reading food columns: I feel like I'm catching up on an old friend and listening to their weekend news when I read Matthew Norman and Hugh F-W. Anyone who also enjoys a 'seaside caff, out of season, luxuriating in the melancholy' is someone I would spend time with. And quite often I just bask in the lovely writing. Try this from Matthew N:
'the spare ribs were just the nobbly, gristly little buggers you'd expect for £2.10, and necessitated an emergency request for the fleshier ribs that come suffused in mandarin sauce, albeit the quality of the late pig posing too high a hurdle for an indistinct sauce.'

Happily, Mel was the cure for a day spent reading about food and not eating it. She sweetly dropped a cake tin back to me, and I lured her into staying for tea and welsh cakes. The recipe is one that Rose and I sent to our female parent, on a postcard from Cardiff, when I lived there. My mother often tells me how good they are but I had never made them. They are easily one of the best tea-time things to make, being quick, requiring rolling pin action and cutting out circles of dough with a wine glass. You fry them in a pan (or griddle them, if you prefer to be picturesque) and I chose to spread butter over them, though I don't think that is very Welsh.

Before we knew it, it was time for something more substantial. Despite Mel's protestations that she couldn't eat 'anything ever again', we managed make good inroads on a quick mushroom risotto, with greens on the side.

The most boring of store-cupboard recipes: onion, two cloves garlic and celery sweated down; risotto rice, a panic there wasn't enough, so some pot barley too; marigold stock; dried porchini mushrooms re-hydrated in warm water - chopped up and added half way through, and the soaking juice added too; fresh mushrooms chopped in at the same time. Parmesan cheese, a little chilli, and forgot the parsley and lemon. Warm and yum and one very appreciative Mel made happy.

Now I'm going to eat the leftovers on this miserable, wet afternoon, and think about where to drink cocktails this evening. It's a good life.