Sunday Lunch-Tea-Dinner

We have one meal on Sundays, and it is usually eaten at home after at least a couple of hours' cooking time.  It might be Lunch, or a Late Lunch, or High Tea, or an Early Dinner, or Dinner.  It might fetch up on the table at any time between 1.00pm and 8.00pm.  I might cook it, I usually cook it, or The Husband might.  It will usually involve some part of a dead animal being put in the oven (purist say it is a misnomer to call this a roast, as roasted meat is spit-turned in front of radiant heat; what we do in the oven and erroneously call a Sunday Roast is in fact Baked Meat). 

I like to do lots of root veggies with it, which I suppose I am also mistaken in calling roasted vegetables.  And something green might be boiled or steamed on top of the stove.  There will be gravy, there MUST be gravy, done the English way, not a poncey French reduction or jus. I will use my covered vegetable dishes if we have guests.  Or I will serve straight from the cooking pan if there are not, as I don't like making washing up.  The Husband will sharpen knives and perform surgery. I will open a second bottle of red before the first is finished, because it is Sunday.

But today I am going a bit on a limb by serving slow-"roasted" pork belly with black crackling (previously marinated in garlic, salt, Chinese Five Spice, sesame oil & light soy sauce) and served with a mound of stir-fried vegetables, including bamboo shoots and water chestnuts, and we will be at the table at about 7.15pm.  Two bottles are already open and breathing...but there will be (shock horror) no gravy.

But it's still a close approximation to our usual fare, because it's Sunday, and some things are sacred and must be observed.  A proper sit down Lunch-Tea-Dinner to round off the weekend is set in stone. 

Rest and Respite

Such a busy April so far, what with starting our move to live permanently and full-time in mid-Wales and getting The Husband's house ready for sale, that I didn't get a chance just to sit still and listen to some Bach for Easter.  Finally, though, I have a morning off so I am cuddled up with the laptop and a cup of coffee and my headphones on so I can soak up some of this.

I mentioned to my Big Sis, Perpetua, that Handel and Mozart are supremely uplifting for me too, as she had said they were for her, but that Bach had wormed its way into my very being, or some such phrase.  This opening chorus of the Johannes Passion is in quite some way resposible for that.  It drills through me...