Fruit and flowers

Day who knows what of lockdown. I ventured out to the bakery today! First time I've been down the 61 steps for a week. Needs must, we had almost run out of wine. Yes, the baker has an excellent wine selection, much better than Mercadona, at keen prices; my preferred options are in the 4-euro range. I bought four bottles plus some milk, carefully practising social distancing. Then I asked for a loaf of bread and he picked it up with his ungloved hand :sigh:: 

Anyway, since we still have lots of flour and no yeast, I started a sourdough starter four days ago. To my surprise it is doing pretty well, so I may be able to bake sourdough in a couple of days.

Last night's film was In A Lonely Place (1950) -- one of Bogart's lesser known roles. It was remarkably good, a noir film that starts with a murder, but that plotline quickly drops into the background to concentrate on the relationship between Bogart's character Dix, a Hollywood screenwriter, and his sassy neighbour Laurel (played by Gloria Grahame, rivalling Lauren Bacall). Dix by name, Dix by nature: it's rare to see Bogart play such an ambivalent character. 

At one point, as a character said that Dix's violent and controlling behaviour should be excused because "he's a genius" I said to S, "No-one would treat domestic abuse that sympathetically nowadays." Then I remembered how Woody Allen and Roman Polanski are still feted for their genius, and, hmm.

In another league of bad behaviour, however long we are locked down I won't be ordering anything from Amazon.

Edit: forgot the food diary! S made a dish of chicken livers, bacon and mushrooms in a cream sauce, served with rice. There's enough for another meal, and we had lunch so late that we weren't hungry this evening and just had pate on toast with a glass of wine.