Well - that was a bad week! First, I come as close as anything to getting offered a job finally after seven months only to have it snatched away again at the last minute as a company-wide hiring freeze is implemented the same day they decide to hire me! So no vacation over the holidays, no travel. Instead we get to buckle down even more on keeping expenditures under control.

So food got really uninteresting for a while there. But then I got back into it and made in rapid succession a delicious Capellini Putanesca with oodles of olives and capers and garlic and anchovies and chilli. Then I made a lovely small pork loin stuffed with goat cheese and apples, surrounded by little rounds of butternut squash. Then we had an extravaganza at a friend's house. Another attendee is a real chef and he made a lovely five hour cooked brisket mounded with caramelised onions. So I made the sides. Soft, creamy polenta with pecorino romano to go underneath. Baked beets, squash, yams, carrots and onions for the side. And greens - twelve different kinds if you count the alliums (beet tops, turnip tops, red chard, white chard, collards, mustard, kale, green cabbage, red cabbage, leek tops, spinach and yellow onion) all sauteed in bacon grease with lemon juice and soy sauce added at the end and then topped with half a pound of crumbled bacon.

And next up is the winter gift project. This year it is oatcakes. Rosemary and Sage oatcakes baked thin and crisp for munching and eating with cheese. They will also be a course in the big upcoming dinner project. We are going to host a murder mystery party - Death at Welfleet. I am busy writing the characters, plot, scenes, etc. Dinner will be very straightforward and very British. But with lots of courses. Drinks, then appetizers, then main meal, then salad, then dessert, then cheese.