tumcakes

[loolahbelle]

Ah hmm hmm hmm. Food food food. It’s that truffle time of year. January. Month of birthdays, deathdays and truffledays. It ‘s become a sort of tradition to have them on my birthday, but it’s slipped these past couple of years. I’d never even had them until I was taken, in the days when there was money, to the Rockpool where I had an omelette with fried potatoes and truffle. I wasn’t expecting much. I’m no foodie. I like nursery food and stodge with the best of ‘em. But I ate that truffle and it was so good that another was ordered and I ate that too. I had trouble containing myself. I wanted to don an 18th century military uniform and parade up and down, firing off my muskets. I wanted to climb onto the table top and leap off onto my head. Yodelling. There are some dishes, over time, that have caused me to be beside myself. Have rendered me more molten than the sweat off a doner kebab. More deliquescent than old Mrs Pheasant. There was the gnocchi in Jaffa. Or the essence of tomato at the Hempel in London, (which almost, but not quite, made up for the company that night). And there are truffles, anywhere. Up a drainpipe, in a puddle, down someone’s trouser leg, I don't give a monkey's. But these days, when I can no longer go to the Rockpool, I’m going to have to learn to cook my own. I have obtained one, from Italy, in a little jar. I’ve no idea whether it’ll be orgasms on rice or whether it’ll taste like the dried turd it resembles. But anyway, we shall see. I’ve been skulling the bookshelves and The River Cafe book has a risotto with black truffle recipe. Score two hits. Neil Perry has soft poached eggs on truffle toast with truffle sauce, which would be a bit like a salmon swimming back to the sea (or do they swim back to the river?, but on balance I think it'll be the risotto. With vermouth. I thought Anton Mosimann would have something but he doesn’t. He does, however, have the next stage in my pursuit of the quintessential fishcake. I’m almost done with my hunt for the perfect meatball, and the baton moves on. Time and gluttony wait for no man...

‘part from that I started back at work today and in spite of a determined, full-hearted decision that I don’t want to do this work, I got in that room with those people and I thought ‘yes’. Just no to all the lunatic buzzing in the beehive. More mitherings on that anon...

And there are rubber opportunities this weekend, and all I can say is that I’m glad it stretches...