Catering, misc

Since our recently widowed neighbour is having her kitchen refitted, we’ve had her and her daughter in for a couple of lunches.  The lasagne was not brilliant, since it was the first time I’d used non-gluten pasta and flour.  I plainly need practice: the top pasta sheets curled up and went hard, and I found it really hard to get the the béchamel to the right consistency.  Still, it all went.  (Of course, it didn’t help that I’d made a batch of my usual béchamel before I remembered that I’d to use gluten-free flour….  Well, there’s some in the freezer for next time).  Yesterday I played safe with a good old chicken casserole, though thickening the sauce was a bit nerve-wracking.  It seems to have gone down OK.  Martyn’s g-f apple crumble went just fine - and the enormous cooking apples from Fortnums were excellent.

Today we’ve had our booster jabs: the organisation at the TA barracks was a shade less impressive than it was across the road at the Masonic Hall, but the administration of the needle was less uncomfortable than the first two.  We bought rather good fish and chips on the way home from a shop we hadn’t used before, since our local shop has been ‘temporarily closed’ for some weeks now.  Must find out what the story is.  But since the place we used today delivers, and takes cards, we may defect.