Sunday 20 February 2011

Brigadoon, broad beans and pretzels


There's a blanket of mist surrounding this part of Essex. I like to imagine it's like the rings circling Saturn. I can't see over the estuary into Kent which gives the feeling of living in Brigadoon or being Nicole Kidman in The Others.

Rain all day yesterday has meant I'm not even venturing down the allotment today. I had planned to buy manure and dig over the bed that contains last year's tatty Bright Lights Chard with the aim of getting some broad beans planted... early-ish. (I'm planting broad beans solely for one recipe: Nigel Slater's Green Hummus from Tender: Vol I). 

But the paths up to the plot will be slippery tracks of well-churned mud and I don't relish shuffling up it with a sack of dung. Ah well, it will keep for another weekend and broad bean hummus just means another annual and ultimately fruitless war against black fly with nothing but pluck and soapy water as weapons.

In the meantime, what to do with a weekend spent in doors when you've been itching to get outside for months... upgrade pretzels by dunking them in chocolate, eat sardines on toast and drink a never ending conveyor belt of tea. It's not a bad life.


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