Saturday/Sunday

SATURDAY

We went clay shooting as usual, hoping for a nice relaxing round with decent scores. Instead, we found that:

a    a)    The course wasn’t ready, so we had to wait for them to sort it.

b    b)    The shooting ground had an Extreme Day on Friday and hadn’t re-set the traps, so it was a VERY difficult course, entirely different from the week before.

We weren’t pleased and our scores showed it!

On Saturday Evening, Alison cooked her fantastic lasagne: she says the secret is in the béchamel sauce. It was very good. I produced a decent rhubarb fool for dessert.

SUNDAY

Our friends Jenny & Stan came round for lunch. For a variety of reasons, we haven’t seen them for 5 months – far too long.

We started with champagne and tapenade (a garlic-free version because of Stan’s preferences), I replaced the garlic with very finely sliced banana shallot and it was OK.

Starter was smoked salmon and potato salad. The salad dressing was a sort-of mayonnaise/tartare sauce. Altogether quite tasty.

Main – the start of the show -: Duck breast cooked pink and sliced, asparagus, new potatoes crushed and cooked with shallot, smoked lardons and parsley, a red wine sauce (included garlic, onion, bay leaf, black peppercorns, home-made damson jam, honey, chicken stock, wine). It as really good!

[I was pleased that I’d taken the time to think about, and plan, how to arrange the food on the plates {and choose which plates: square for the main, round for the starter} – it makes a lot of difference and avoids one last-minute panic.]

Cheese – Camembert (carefully ripened), Leicestershire, Manchego + hoe0-made Membrillo (last of the year).

Dessert – Alison made a traditional trifle from scratch (but without sherry since we both think that it spoils both the trifle and the sherry).

Overall, it was a great meal that our guests obviously enjoyed. 

The only downside was that the dishwasher decided to die on Sunday Evening! Just a series of clunks and a dead machine full of water. I’ve called the repair place and they’re coming tomorrow (Tuesday), but I know from bitter experience that this will just be a diagnostic call as they’ll have to order parts and that may take a couple of weeks. Not happy about this since all you cooks will know how important the dishwasher is in the kitchen!