Friday 3rd April 2020

Milk-based cooking… I’ve been straining for inspiration, after snatch-buying what Val calls a carboy of milk – i.e. 4 pints. Because that was all they had in full fat organic. So now under pressure to use it up by its use by date of 10th April.

Nothing to be wasted in this war.

Last night we had Zoom with Merle Barr, Angus Willis and Fergus Strachan. I must mark that Fergus taught me many years ago never to touch my face, especially eyes, if I wanted to avoid infection, which has given me a head-start in this outbreak, for it takes years to develop the discipline of not touching. I do think that eventually the Government will have to lop most people’s hands off, all the same.

Angus was two Negronis down (not sure what they are) and had only got as far as assemblage of his Vietnamese Monkfish and Dill creation by 9.30.  He says Asian is right down. That nam-pla fish sauce stuff slashed in price… Everyone wants pies.  But I was screaming for milk recipes. At last inspiration poured forth – cheese souffle, roast bird with bread sauce, bird rechauffe au sauce veloute vermouth avec broccoli, sole veronique, filets de sole crecy. It really was looking as if, single-handed, I could reverse the whole of modern cooking. Flour-based milk sauce blanketing the culinary landscape once again. But my greatest moment was yet to come. Suddenly it flashed upon me… every day in childhood we had it, when we weren’t having Ambrosia Creamed Rice. With jam, or tinned fruit and as a really manic extravagance, cream drizzled in (except drizzling hadn’t begun then. You just poured). Bird’s Custard…. why on earth hadn’t I thought of it before? Merle began investigating online. Did it even exist still? I thought I had some left over from the 1980s. But Merle had already found it at Sainsbury’s online although worryingly out of stock.

This morning at Waitrose – oh the new dawn. Bird’s stacked to the ceiling and right next to it the tinned fruit. No loganberries sadly, but peaches which have every hope of being ‘cling’ (Val and I have spent so many hours wondering what a ‘Cling Peach’ could be) and prunes in apple juice. I also got bananas and real rhubarb. And Duchy Double Cream.

So I’m set up for puddings for the foreseeable future. Like the epidemic itself. Everything cancelled for the foreseeable future. Had banana and custard at lunchtime today. Absolutely shattering. I was so sleepy all afternoon.

Pudding Scheme for the Foreseeable Future: Birds Back!

First Custard Experience in well over 50 Years. Shattering. So Sleepy All Afternoon

Angus Willis: Last Night’s Supper after Two Negronis: Asian Food Prices Slashed, He Says