I don’t know about you but we love having friends round for drinks and/or supper, BUT I HATE COOKING and I am not a good cook. I start out with the best of intentions, keep recipes nice and simple – no more than six ingrediants please – but still the food does not taste as nice as it looks in the book and usually bear no resemblance to the photos. I have friends who adore cooking and who have shelves and shelves of cookery books, whereas I have about six. Saint Delia, a couple of pasta and salad books, Jack Munro (cheap and cheerful) and a dessert book. Oh, a couple of soup books too. Now those I can do, soups. Anyhow, last evening we had a jolly table of eight people and I started off with asparagus with a sweet and sour vinaigrette made with grapefruit juice and decorated with grapefruit segments. I thought it wouldn’t look much on the plate so I decided to add a couple of those little goats cheeses which are breaded and which you can heat in a frying pan. Easy peasy. It was only when Ernst and the guests were having aperos and I was ‘plating up’ that although I had intended two little cheeses per person, I had only bought twelve. Er, what ??!! So apologies made and some of us were happy with one cheese. Lovely understanding friends.
The main course was vegetarian Shepherd’s pie with baked red cabbage and apple. Great, tasted good. Then cheese, then dessert. It was when I went to the fridge to get the cream to go with the ‘sort of’ Eton mess, that I found the plate of beautifully prepared grapefruit segments, all pealed to perfection, to go with the asparagus. I was furious, all the time I had spent making sure they were pith free (Ernst does NOT do pith). Of course we all had a good laugh but I was so disappointed. Luckily Joy, just back from England, had brought some ‘Coronation Fudge’, so I drowned my sorrows with that whilst the others gorged on Kirsch filled chocs bought for us by Danielle in Switzerland.
That was not my worse cooking faux pas, I once served up an apple crumble I had made a couple of days before the supper it was intended for and which had been in the freezer. Only problem was, I took it out of the freezer in ample of time …….but forgot to cook it !!
Anyhow to the job in hand, I am delighted to tell you that Falco and Teddy have gone to great homes, Danielle is back and the dogs are coming in thick and fast. A couple of the new females are waiting to see the vet to make sure they are not ‘with pup’, fingers crossed because if they are we have to wait until they have the pups and the pups are weaned before we can home them. I’m hoping to have the adoptions page up to date and running just as soon as Danielle sends me all the details.
It’s that time of year again, the village fetes are starting and the Roquecor one (19th, 20th, 21st May) is always good value. AbFabba will be singing in the evening of the Saturday so it’s worth going just to see/hear them.
Enjoy the Coronation if you are going to watch. I am a royal family supporter whereas most of my pals are not, so I will have the ‘telly’ on and luckily Ernst will be away so no harrumphing and moaning in the background. Whatever your feelings, this is history in the making.
Adoption page should be up to date in a couple of days.
Sue x