Light relief

I felt as if a bus had hit me today, with no inclination to get out of bed, but we were invited to lunch, so I gradually pulled myself together and off we set. And what a good thing we did, it was much-needed light relief.
 
Our host is French and, better yet, a chef. He abandoned Rio for the hills just over a year ago and has a lovely place, complete with two dogs and two cats. It was a small party of good friends and we had a wonderful, four-course lunch, starting with home-cured salmon and a salmon-based concoction that I should have asked the name of (excuse horrible sentence construction). Whatever it was, it was delicious, as was the creamy cod dish that followed and the almond tarts and home-made lemon sorbet. In between, he asked us to try and to comment on an experimental production of Cumberland sausages that he’s making on behalf of the BCS (formerly the British Commonwealth Society).  The committee wants to serve bangers and mash at an upcoming bash and he obtained a recipe from a highly distinguished source. The results were mouth-watering – all of us having been a bit skeptical about the idea of bangers and mash at a special party, we were converted immediately.

I took Kayla for a short car-walk when we got home. She's very excitable this weekend, I don't think she can understand Dookie's absence - or maybe it's just that we've brought the cat up with us and she's aware of its presence. Tomorrow we start educating her that cats are not for eating - not that I think she would attack it, whereas Dookie would have made short work of it, given half a chance.

P.S. Our host tells me that the 'concoction' was a terrine, made with salmon and taioba (Xanthosoma sagittifolium), commonly called "arrowleaf elephant ear" in English and also sometimes referred to as tannia. Used as spinach, but with better results.