Not something I'd normally run for, rather usually I'd run away from, but it's a fantastically beautiful book, and full of gorgeous recipes that embrace the region's Arab cuisine. I went off to Mecca in Westfield on Friday after work, sat at the Tapas bar and ordered a glass of wine and some pequino peppers, opened the book and gasped at recipe after recipe. Forget your fifty shades of grey, this is the only sort of porn I want to read in public.
So after Killing Them Softly (argh - brains and blood and five minutes of rhetoric at the end which didn't justify the sub-Tarantinoesque violence, albeit with good acting), I went home and roasted cauliflower with hazelnuts and pomegranate, and sweet potatoes with a balsamic reduction, figs and goats cheese, mopped up with the stuffed bread left over from the baby shower tea on Wednesday.
Saturday morning - a walk down Portobello Road where I bought the funny egg plate for a couple of quid and which I'll never use, except in my fantasies, when I'll fill it with home made easter eggs (my one attempt at making chocolate eggs resulted in me licking the chocolate out of the mould after it refused to release) for my phantom grandchildren - or at least, I hope they're phantom - take note kids, I'm not quite ready. Well actually, more to the point - you're not ready.
Chelsea v Norwich on Saturday, followed by the Perks of Being a Wallflower - loved it, loved it, love, love, loved it. Walked home, a bit teary, for leftovers and a bottle of the corner shop's finest red wine for £5.99 - dessert the purple ones out of a tin of Roses. Swanky, or what?
Sunday morning breakfast a slice of the stuffed bread, toasted, with a poached egg on top and basil hollandaise, followed by a day in the garden, and the basil harvest, picked, washed, pureed with olive oil and frozen for future pesto - a little taste of summer, though saved a few flowers to keep the wonderful smell floating around.
Downton Abbey and a bowl of home made made pesto... Perfect - if only there had been any purple Roses left, but now we're down to the cream centres.
