Cooking is showing someone you love them , or in this case ,care for them . At the moment we have three lovely students living with us , Shizuka from Nagoya ,Japan and Cecile and Katrine from Denmark . Cecile and Katrine arrived yesterday ( giving us the most beautiful gift – a set of 3 classic danish bowls which match the decanter and night-light holders we already have ) and because they are from Denmark , I thought they were practically relatives .Turns out they are from the south, nearer to Germany and so haven’t got a clue when I talk about all the places we’ve eaten open-sandwiches in Copenhagen and how I know the best little beauty salon for a back,sack and crack ( if they were male) or a facial, run by my wonderful niece, Victoria who has magic, beautifying hands.
So tonight I thought I’d cook them all a traditional roast with all the trimmings …Irish beef- rare .Horseradish sauce with grated horseradish from the garden ( except the root I dug up turned out to be a hydrangea, so we’ve got Colman’s ). Yorkshire puds ( Auntie Bessies’ ) etc etc …and a cherry pie ( cue sniggers from everyone who lives in Ealing ) and custard ( at least I’m making the custard …unless I can find a tin lurking at the back of the cupboard ) , washed down with a nice bottle of red .
In the last five minutes they’ve all texted to say they won’t be in for dinner .Maybe they weren’t impressed with last night’s Cowboy Bean Bake , the recipe I got from Rosie’s ‘Dorling Kindersley Children’s step-by-step Cookbook’ , which we gave to her on 9.12.98. She loved that book
PS – Jacob ,when we were all looking through the World Atlas last night and your trip summary for Japan dropped out .In it you plan to travel just south of Nagoya- now you have somewhere to stay !