Food escape from tensions

It’s another wading-through-treacle day. I seem to have had to take an inordinate time “quickly” checking up on e-mails, looking up dates for an exhibition we’re hoping to see & getting here, on my blog site. It never ceases to amaze me just how long it can take just booting up some days.

Yesterday I had a go on our recently returned laptop. There I found I couldn’t even work out how to gain access to the website to write my blog. The Fox is going to look into the matter. I’m beginning to think the computer shop has so cleaned up the computer that I no longer know how to use it! My frustration is ever increasing.

Tomorrow the new home help should be coming. I’m a little nervous, especially since we’ve not had a phone call to confirm that they have managed to arrange for someone to come at our preferred time. We’ll see what happens. Our impression is that the people running the company are very caring, just a little inadequate at organisation, so hopefully the phone call, or rather lack of it, is a minor admin oversight. We’ll soon find out.

The Fox is cooking tomorrow. He’s trying an Elizabeth David recipe, with a slight tweak in that he’s using pork rather than veal, which is impossible to find around here. It will be cooked en papilotte with some ham & mushrooms – should be good. All I’ll need to do in the morning is prepare some spuds to accompany the pork.

The Fox cooked yesterday too. That was an old favourite, a meal we used to have very frequently, mainly because it was so cheap & money was very tight those days. He made a Carbonara. This version uses just a couple of ounces of bacon & mushrooms, along with eggs & a little cheese, and, of course, some pasta. I used to always make my own pasta, but these days I don’t seem to get around to making tagliatelle so often. The Fox used some supermarket fresh pasta that was taking up space in the freezer – not a patch on my fresh pasta! We did end up thinking that spaghetti might have been a better, lighter, alternative. Still it’s one less thing in the freezer.

So, by way of change, today I’ve just made up some chillied beef burgers, ready to grill this evening. It’s time we had a bit of spice. We need something to warm us on these damp chilly nights.