tonight: boudin, mash, white asparagus (see below) and then pears belle helene

so far have had a great weekend's eating - e roasted some lamb with papardelle on friday night, and i made some duck with parsnips and tardivo yesterday. i also attempted some associative, free form biscuits to accompanythe latter stages of notting hill. they were surprisingly ok given at the outset i didn't know if i was actually going to have an oven and was wondering if one could grill them. for mothers day simon and i are taking the folks to kastoori in tooting, which will doubtless be a treat.

i am loving this bbc4 doc on rough trade. so far it is sound tracking sunday's work with pretty, quiet post punk girl bands from the era of my birth, although i guess some louder, later treats are in store. tonight i am hoping to follow fat guy's method for a steak with a lovely looking rib from waitrose @ westfield. i will let you know how i get on.

eta: robert wyatt from the above (not so sure about his politics though...)

more bad news.

quail, celery and garlic

looks like my call of a bottom at 3500 for ftse 100 made back in late 2007 was too optimistic after all.

i am speechless that all anyone in the government has to say about the state of the economy is about some failed despot's pension. i may have to emigrate.

i was studying on friday, and took the opportunity to nip down to borough for some rather delicious butter from ile de re, and some sourdough from polaine. i was inspired a bit by a memory of a photo on julot's webpage, and this lux-tartine were a feature of the weekend. last night i cooked e roast quail, roast garlic, braised celery and a crouton of guess what - i hope a pic of this might follow in due course. we watched stavisky on dvd which i am sorry to say i found baffling: sorry since it is a good looking film. perhaps it pays too close a hommage to the big sleep et al. which i remember reading that renais loved.