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.
Either way - it sounds just great to me.
ReplyDeleteGosh, did you both survive no gravy? :-) It all sounds mouthwatering, but there's no way DH would allow meals to coalesce like this....
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DeleteIs DH a man of regular habits or of a nervous disposition? Will the walls crumble and roof fall in if lunch is later than 2.00pm? LOL!
DeleteHusband #1's Edwardian Dowager Duchass of a grandmother used to expect her sherry at 12.55 and any lunch that failed to materialise by one on the dot was greeted with the comment, What is this - Ragtime? It was as though her digestion and/or expectations just couldn't cope with the slightest syncopation.
She also ran her fingers along the tops of mouldings, door frames and pictures when visiting her son and poor d-i-law to check for dust, and would pocket a silver spoon if she felt the bill was too steep when she ate out. A regular suburban Queen Mary, she was!
Nope, just a man whose stomach thinks it's been short-changed unless his meals number three in a day. :-) No real problem about timing, as all our meals are movable feasts - it's the number that matters....
DeleteHello:
ReplyDeleteGravy or no gravy, we should love to be part of this lunch/tea/supper/dinner [does it ever get to be breakfast?] as it all sounds so mouthwateringly delicious.
We are absolutely no cooks ourselves and so the idea of being in a kitchen long enough to create such a culinary masterpiece is quite alien to us. However, we love eating and should be more than happy to wait for however long with the thought of this wonderful food to look forward to. In addition, we love the idea of lazy Sundays when the usual routines of the week are cast to the wind and life is taken at an altogether different pace.
Thank you so much for the comment which you left on our latest post, to which we have replied and through which we have, happily, found you. We have signed ourselves as Followers and we do so hope that you might be tempted back to us, perhaps as a Follower too one day.
Thanks for stopping by, Jane and Lance. Had you realised that Perpetua is my Big Sis (and I - by extension - am her Baby Sis; her 54-year-old baby Sis)?
DeleteYour particular two-site living intrigues me. Hungary and Brighton are very colourful places! Are you in Budapest? And if so, are you in Buda or Pest?
Hello [again]:
DeleteNo, we had not previously realised, until very recently, that you were a sister of Perpetua whose posts we so much enjoy.
Yes, most of our time is spent in Budapest, which we regard as home, although we do keep a flat in Brighton. We are on the Pest side of the Danube!