Comfort Food

The weather has been so grim this week.  It’s a good thing we live on a hill.  We seriously considered packing a suitcase and driving south to Spain or Morocco in search of sunshine.  But with the fuel shortages (some of our local supermarket’s pumps were empty yesterday) this didn’t seem to be the best idea.

Today there is some respite in the weather.  Paul and I walked through the woods with a bag of rubbish to the poubelles (rubbish bins).  We met Philippe who was on his way to his parent’s farm.  They had lost a dozen chickens overnight.  He didn’t think it was a fox as they all had their heads removed.  I didn’t recognise the word he used for the suspected culprit, it might have been ‘furet’ which is a ferret.

This miserable weather has given me an excuse to stay in the warm kitchen and cook a hearty casserole.  I’ve used a recipe from my trusty Delia cookbook.  The book is over thirty years old and held together by duck tape and full of my own notes and scribbles.  Yesterday we had a vegetarian black bean chilli but tonight it’s Spanish Pork with Olives.  It's very rich and delicious with rice or mashed potatoes.