Cook and dine with comfortable friends

We had such a fun evening last Friday. Went to friends for a ‘cook and dine’ evening. One girl showed us how to prepare the starter (avocado, bacon and mushrooms, toasted with cheese on top), another the main dish – absolutely scrummy cardamom chicken, creamy with coconut but just enough chilli bite. Pudding was ‘apple crump’ – softened bramleys with a crumble mixture on top, made by adding melted butter to flour and sugar and then crumbled over and baked to form a crisp topping. I haven’t had this since I was in Sweden, where it is made by spreading the flour and sugar and then layering butter over, scraped off the block with a cheese slicer. I’ve never managed to do this successfully so was glad to see Tess’s method.

So we all pitched in, peeling, chopping, slicing, grating – with several glasses of wine to help. It was huge fun.

Afterwards, we had Martyn’s special coffee: locally roasted and ground coffee beans (Bean 14) produced on the island, with whipped frothy milk, so stiff it was like creamy soufflé and then thimblefuls of Amaretto di Saronno, so delicious it was like drinking chocolate almonds.

Then, suddenly, it was 11.30. I didn’t want to go home – see my post over at Words from God for Today.

Marvellous. Wonderful.

Even Richard is keen on the idea of Further Advanced Restaurant Training Sessions.