Mezze

We wake to a lovely morning, the sun shining brightly from a clear sky, so we eat breakfast in the garden, smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye toast. Later, over coffee, I read the papers on my iPad and note clouds starting to gather in the West. After a shower, I walk Norman round the village and then drive to North Bar for ten thirty mass, leaving Normy with Alice, who has been left behind, at her request, to revise for her GCSE's while the rest visit Legoland. She declines my offer of lunch, so I give her some money, pleased with the devotion to revision she has shown during the last month. In church we are back in "ordinary time", the Easter and Whitsuntide celebrations over. Father Roy has chosen the hymns, and they are all well known, so, lead by the choir, we give a good rendition, the closing hymn is "To be a pilgrim", which at Grammar School we always morphed into "To be a grim pill". After communion, I collect Normy and then stop at Tesco, where I buy some lamb mince and a nice Shiraz, as I have plans for lunch. The weather is still fine when we arrive home, so I set up the toaster and the electric frying pan in the garden and try to reprise the Mezze from the Poseidon Restaurant in Erlangen. I use half the minced lamb to make kofte, which I season with Cumin and Coriander, then fry the aubergine, that I peeled sliced and salted overnight, in a light batter, I have also bought Humus and made mint yogurt and spicy, garlic tomato dips. It is a lot of fuss for one, but fun and good practice for cooking with Laura on Wednesday. The Aubergine are great, exactly like the restaurant but the Kofte are more middle eastern than Greek, but still taste OK. I have also brought out the red checked table cloth I bought in Breille and the clips that fix it to the table, in order to stop it blowing away. Basking in the late sun and warmed by the Shiraz, I resolve to invite David and Irene over for lunch and Jackie and Gino as well. Later, after everything is cleared away, I hang some more pictures in the hall, one of "Almost straight Wood" and another of "the fields across Carr Lane", both snowscapes  from the previous winter. To bed for ten after reading a couple of chapters of "Rough Mmusic".