Goodbye to a trusty friend
It is really like losing a close friend. After six years my trusty stove, purchased for £600 cash from a bankrupt guesthouse, has finally given up the ghost.
This poor piece of kit, designed for "light use", has taken more kicks than I would care to reflect on. Held together with numerous bolts, chains and tea towels, it has finally been condemned.
Whenever I get some money in my pocket and start looking at new cars, vans and other essentials, I am also faced with replacing dishwashers, freezers and other mundane matters.
I now have a tough decision: shall I, as usual, take time out to scour the local auction houses, purchase new, or go for the loaded lease deal?
The first few months of the New Year are always the most frustrating. Having stored up ideas for new menus, decor and promotions for the past six months, everything is put on hold until "after Christmas". I am now impatient to get all the ideas into operation.
In-house publishing
Now we have purchased a new computer system, we can produce all the menus, newsletters and accounts in-house. Piles of half-finished literature, much of which resembles advertisements for a travelling circus, surround us as we get carried away with the desktop publishing and Clipart!
Unfortunately, the system is installed within reach of the family and my allocated screen time seems to be 1am to 3am.
After vowing never to get involved again, we are currently in the throes of the Times lunch-for-a-fiver offer. The fear of seeing other restaurants full while we stand empty, and the £10 average spend we achieved on last year's promotion, meant we duly signed up and have been busy from the first day.
I am not of the ilk to participate in a seven-week scheme at cost, so we have donned our thinking caps and produced some really first-rate food for next to nothing.
Among the dishes on offer have been ballontine of chicken on a bed of root vegetables; salmon, kale and ginger spring rolls with black bean sauce; and leek, Gruyäre and pine-nut risotto. Along with roasted pears, rum and sultana rice pudding and caramelised apple wafers, I think it has to be worth £5 of anybody's money!
Foods of love
We also have planned a bumper Valentine dinner. At £56 a couple, we have a classy menu with dishes taken from the book The Foods of Love by Max de Roche. The ingredients are all guaranteed aphrodisiacs, so staff consumption will be strictly monitored.
But we are avoiding the hilarious trait of giving these dishes titillating titles. I have a collection of such classics gleaned from the local eating-out columns.
My favourite is a local hotel that offered an Elvis Presley evening complete with Great Melon Balls of Fire, Love me Tenderloin of Pork and in the Chocolate Ghetto Gateaux!
Next diary from Richard Hughes is on 6 March
