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Saturday, July 30, 2011

On the surface, it might appear that no good has come out of Lisa's hideous accident. I mean, sure, she's been through a lot of pain, long-term disfigurement, physical and mental trauma, and ruined four thousand pounds worth of dental treatment that she spent years saving up for. But that's only part of the story. On the plus side, I picked up a pretty good recipe in the dentist's waiting room last Friday.

It was in the BBC's Good Food Magazine, and it was for Chicken & Ham Sandwich Pies. I made them on Thursday afternoon...

The Value of Pie
According to the recipe, "These bread-based pies are really portable", thereby instantly setting them apart from all the world's other pies, which are pretty much housebound and immovable. So having got them out of the oven, I tested their portability by taking them to St Leonards for my birthday picnic...

Who ate all the pies?
That's Amelie and me out in the wilds of Sussex with a home-made pie and a jam sandwich. I'm now officially pushing forty, so the rug really should be on my head.

Obviously, when I say 'the wilds of Sussex', I'm referring to my parents' garden. We discussed various possible locations for my birthday lunch, before deciding on the patch of grass ten yards from the back door. It meant we could drink tea without taking a flask, and Amelie could pop home for the toilet.

Here she is demonstrating the BSL sign for 'More Cake Please'...


... after which she picked up my camera and took a photo of her Daddy...


... or possibly my Mum's greenhouse. It's hard to say which she was aiming for.

Having picnicked until the sun went down (about 3pm BST), we then had a break from the eating to rest, relax and start reading the pizza delivery menu. I was keen to experience the Domino's effect, but we also had to cater for those members of the family too awkward or toothless to eat pizza, by agreeing to get fish & chips as well. So while I placed the pizza order online, my Mum took Amelie on a fishing trip to the local chippy.

Or she would have done if Amelie hadn't scraped her hand getting into the car, and been forced to return home for some Savlon. As she said to us at the time, "I've had an accident like Mummy". A fact I disputed by pointing out that I wasn't on my hands and knees, cleaning up blood and broken glass from the carpet, whilst on the phone to an emergency dentist.

A combination of Amelie's injury time delay and a lightning fast delivery from Domino's, meant that fifteen minutes later, I was sitting here with my birthday tea, while the rest of the family went hungry. Or as hungry as you can go when you've been eating pies all afternoon. Naturally I could have started without them, but I felt there was more mileage in making them feel guilty by waiting for the fish & chips to arrive, and then reheating my pizza in the microwave. Whilst reminding them that I really should have been at The Well at Bulkington.

It wasn't long before I was tucking into some sympathy desserts, and my Mum was bringing out the birthday cake...

Have my cake and eat it.
Judging by the cake my Dad got for his 70th birthday, I think there's only one bakery in St Leonards. And they haven't moved on much in three years. The candles were supposed to be in two rows - one of three and one of eight, to indicate my age of 38. Unfortunately Amelie insisted on adding a fourth to the top line. That girl's putting years on me.

2 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

It could be that the buyer of the cakes always looks for the cheapest!

Dave said...

Spooky.  As I started reading this post, I thought 'I shall comment "where's the cake?"'.