fixing

Browsing in my local bookshop in the few minutes before it shut tonight i found a Tamasin Day-Lewis cook book that i didn't already have on my bookshelf. Her cooking style suits me; sophisticated enough to be a challenge but never fiddly, it is the sort of food i would like to put on my table every day.

I particularly like Tamasin's use of more unorthodox vegetables. I am not silly enough to try the curried cream of artichoke soup (well, maybe), but the spicy celeriac and coconut milk soup is high on my list to try, along with celeriac, thyme and potato gratin, once the winter vegetables start appearing in my veg box.

My reminder list, for slightly cooler evenings:

• Sweet-sour roasted parsnips with sweet potatoes.
• Veal ragu
• Parsley and horseradish dumplings
• Beef Daube, flavoured with Rum

For some time, very soon:

• Summer Lemon and Raspberry cake
• Blondie (date brownies)
• A gluten-free almond and blood orange cake
• Lemon Devil's Food cake.

First of all i am set to try an alternative to my poached ham; a Baked Gammon with Parsley Sauce, for the boys' supper tomorrow.

I also browsed some unknown cook names, and spotted an idea i have to try: Rocky Road made with turkish delight and pistachios.





500g minced pork, a little finely chopped bacon, a crushed garlic clove, grated zest of a lemon and a handful of torn basil leaves; blend with your fingers and roll into walnut-sized balls. Flatten slightly as you cook them briskly in a pan with a little heated oil. Make sure they colour well to a crisp and caramelised finish - cook for 2 or 3 minutes on each side and check one to see they are juicy but not pink.



I miss kissing.

The lack of lip contact should have been the major signal in my disintegrating marriage; we had startling sex, but the spontaneous kissing was infrequent towards the end. Somehow it became less intimate to have my face in his lap than to be nose to nose with him.

Some things can become a purely physical action, especially if you are intent on providing reassurance (for self, or not), and the sentiment is easier to disguise if you can ignore the lack of electical surge, by avoiding the kiss that doesn't work any longer.

I can share so much with another, but without the undisguised reactions that might occur in my body as we kiss there is still so much i don't know.