The refrigerator is in the dining room connected to power via an overhead extension cord.
The six-shelf cupboard we use as a larder has also been emptied and moved. Half its contents - cans, jars, bottles, packets - are piled high on the small round table; while the other half - cooking magazines and cookbooks in their hundreds - completely cover the large dining table. (Have you any idea how heavy several hundred books and magazines are? Nobody should need that many recipes. I think I'll throw them all out.)
The reason? We have just had the dining room floor polished and the kitchen floor retiled. It took a while. It's a project T. started on a whim - the week before Christmas - by tearing up the floor in the dining room. 'It's the week before Christmas,' I had said, 'and you have just ripped up the dining room floor and we have scores of people coming for Christmas!' 'So?' T. replied. 'We're eating outdoors.' You have to admire a woman who can start renovating the week before Christmas and not get stressed about it.
Now the job is complete. Yes, there were delays. It's amazing how fast six months goes when you have a job in progress. But the small dining room is glowing with a nice timber finish, not too glossy; while the kitchen is sparkling with a newly tiled floor.
Tomorrow I'll move the furniture and its contents back. In the week they've been displaced, I've been trying to run down stocks so that there would be less to move back.
*
So we got to last night. What's for dinner?
There's handful of walnuts, some fat black olives, an onion, some mushrooms, a chile pepper, a green capsicum and a can of diced tomatoes. Some frozen peas. Hmm, sounds like provencale sauce, something I usually cook for pasta.
I bought some nice white-fleshed fish from the market.
Fish Provencale.
Place the walnuts in a pan and warm them gently just until they start to release the aroma of their oil. A dash of olive oil, a chopped onion and a dozen pitted olives. Then the capsicum, sliced; the chile pepper and the mushrooms, sliced. Turn the heat way down low, give the pan a couple of shakes and replace the lid. Everything will sweat and release delicious aromas. Then add the can of diced tomatoes, a cup of frozen peas and maybe half a cup of water. Simmer.
In another pan, start to fry the fish very gently in a little oil. When it's about halfway done, pour the simmering sauce over it. Cook until fish is done. Serve with cous cous and silverbeet wilted in oil and garlic.
Eat in the loungeroom with dinner balanced on your knee because there's no room at the big table. Or the little one.
The six-shelf cupboard we use as a larder has also been emptied and moved. Half its contents - cans, jars, bottles, packets - are piled high on the small round table; while the other half - cooking magazines and cookbooks in their hundreds - completely cover the large dining table. (Have you any idea how heavy several hundred books and magazines are? Nobody should need that many recipes. I think I'll throw them all out.)
The reason? We have just had the dining room floor polished and the kitchen floor retiled. It took a while. It's a project T. started on a whim - the week before Christmas - by tearing up the floor in the dining room. 'It's the week before Christmas,' I had said, 'and you have just ripped up the dining room floor and we have scores of people coming for Christmas!' 'So?' T. replied. 'We're eating outdoors.' You have to admire a woman who can start renovating the week before Christmas and not get stressed about it.
Now the job is complete. Yes, there were delays. It's amazing how fast six months goes when you have a job in progress. But the small dining room is glowing with a nice timber finish, not too glossy; while the kitchen is sparkling with a newly tiled floor.
Tomorrow I'll move the furniture and its contents back. In the week they've been displaced, I've been trying to run down stocks so that there would be less to move back.
*
So we got to last night. What's for dinner?
There's handful of walnuts, some fat black olives, an onion, some mushrooms, a chile pepper, a green capsicum and a can of diced tomatoes. Some frozen peas. Hmm, sounds like provencale sauce, something I usually cook for pasta.
I bought some nice white-fleshed fish from the market.
Fish Provencale.
Place the walnuts in a pan and warm them gently just until they start to release the aroma of their oil. A dash of olive oil, a chopped onion and a dozen pitted olives. Then the capsicum, sliced; the chile pepper and the mushrooms, sliced. Turn the heat way down low, give the pan a couple of shakes and replace the lid. Everything will sweat and release delicious aromas. Then add the can of diced tomatoes, a cup of frozen peas and maybe half a cup of water. Simmer.
In another pan, start to fry the fish very gently in a little oil. When it's about halfway done, pour the simmering sauce over it. Cook until fish is done. Serve with cous cous and silverbeet wilted in oil and garlic.
Eat in the loungeroom with dinner balanced on your knee because there's no room at the big table. Or the little one.
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