The meal this evening:
Tonight was supposed to be a lovely romantic night, filled with Amazing Race and cosiness on the settee. I was going to take the lock off the central heating and allow Paul to put the heating on – well, it was icy on my car this morning, I think I’ve been entirely Geordie enough about the temperature thing. We’ve got one of those god-awful ‘why yes, I’m incontinent’ gas fires that the previous old couple had installed and I hate it. It hisses and smells, rather like Paul – and has equally dangerous levels of combustible gas. Anyway. That idea was quite literally put to bed as, after I made him the delicious dinner you see below, he went to ‘drop the kids off’ and fell asleep on the toilet. So he’s away for an early night (in bed, that is – he’s not still on the netty) and I’m left to do the cleaning up, accompanied only by the sound of his snoring, gasping for air and death-rattle farting. He’s lucky he’s so deliciously squishy.
Actually, I say it’s quiet, but I’m actually being tormented by Cat Number 2 (Sola), who is currently outside the house trying to get in. No problem, I’ll open the door. Except when I do, she sits there meowing and runs off as soon as I go to pick her up. Now she isn’t fucking Lassie, I know there’s no-one trapped down a well (and plus she’s an evil cat – she’d be at the top of the well having a shit over the rim rather than dashing for help), she’s just doing it to torment me. I sit down at the computer chair, and I hear the scratching at the front door begin. Then, she sticks her paw in a loose bit of fixture on the door and pulls it back just enough to make a tapping sound. Again and again and again. I put up with it, I curse at her, then I eventually get up, open the door, and off she flees. My own cat is playing Knocky-fucking-Nine Doors with me! It’s bad enough I wake up to the sight of her licking her pencil sharpener every single morning, now she’s bullying me at night too! Bag. I might see if I can take her to the vet and get her un-spayed, just because she was so hilariously grumpy for the few days after her last op. That’ll teach her.
to make seared tuna with carrot flowers:
No need for a recipe breakdown here, I don’t think – says it all above! The bit about balsamic pearls is just something extra, you absolutely don’t need to dick about doing that. It does look good though, even if the tuna in the photo looks like Vern from the leech scene in Stand by Me. Don’t judge, I only had a crappy sugar thermometer. Always good to learn new techniques though and it was the recipe here that I used. Give it a go!
Oh! One thing. You could easily make this a syn free meal by omitting the horseradish, but I find it adds a nice hit of heat to an otherwise plain, but delicious, dinner.
I’m trying hard to get into fish for an evening meal, with the old adage of ‘if it swims, it slims’ ringing in my ears. But so far, only tuna has passed muster, with everything else being deemed too fishy by my sensitive tastebuds. People always do the same thing when I mention I don’t like fish – have you tried swordfish, oysters, trout, blah blah – yes! I have! I’m not unadventurous when it comes to food – I’ll try anything and never say I don’t like something without trying it. So I’m working my way through more fish, but, you know if you were to put down a steak and a piece of fish, you’d be able to tell which was fish because of the taste? It’s THAT taste I don’t like. Not fishiness, just…non-meatiness!
Fish does remind me of a favourite memory, though. I used to go on holiday to Montreuil-sur-Mer with a very good mate, and despite us both being common as muck, we decided to see if we could get a table at the poshest restaurant in the area, the Château de Montreuil, a ridiculously uptight fine-dining affair, not quite our level. Well no, nowhere near our level. We managed to bluff our way through the million courses until we were served a tiny blini with what I imagine was very good caviar atop. At the precise moment my friend put it into his mouth, I made a snide comment about one of the waiters and, of course with me being so deliciously cutting, he promptly burst out laughing, with the barely digested blini and caviar arcing gracefully across the table and landing in my doubtless very-expensive glass of white wine. Well, that was it for me, I was beyond help, in veritable paroxysms of laughter, but he was momentarily ashen. What to do? All manner of French lemon-mouthed hoity-toitys had turned to look at us. So, cool as a chinese cucumber, he reaches across the table, lifts my glass and downs the lot – wine, caviar and blini – in one full gulp and crashes the glass down on the table with a loud exclamation of ‘DEE-LICIOUS’.
Good heavens.
It’s no wonder other nations think we’re such an uncultured bunch. Ah he’s brilliant.
I’m off to try and rouse Paul and salvage the last of our evening. I want my bloody one-syn chocolate orange for one thing! I’ve mulled over the best way to wake him up, and I’ve settled on playing Les Dennis doing his Mavis impression on loop through the wireless speaker in our bedroom. Ain’t I a stinker…
Goodnight,
J
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