Circumstances beyond my control

Rob and I had promised each other not to buy any more books until we're in the hut and have a book shelf for them! But circumstances beyond my control led to the acquisition of two new books.

I'm not sure I've told you this before. The (opps I mean one of the) highlight of our week is library night. We scan the library website looking for new books, or if they don't happen to have it, we get them to buy it. Then we wait patiently whilst it sits on our holds list until one day the magic email arrives. Your hold is ready for pick up. I'm not sure why it's so delicious to know you are the first person to read a new library book. So you can imagine my delight when Monty's latest book turned up for me. Just as an aside, I do have a slight crush on Monty, I mean what's not to like, he cooks, gardens, loves dogs, writes well, is pleasing to the eye, and can get away with wearing braces! I took it home the night before my brother's wedding. So I only had a quick flick through the lovely thick pages of this book of simple home food, with recipes that make use of garden produce. I looked forward to having more time to savour it. We arranged for a puppy babysitter during the wedding and went off confident it would all be ok. On our return, our poor puppy babysitter looked a bit sheepish. Claudia had snuck inside and munched on a book. Apparently she was only on her own for a few minutes! You guessed it, Claudy had munched most of the front cover off. There was no hiding the fact with the obvious tooth marks. So we had to buy a new copy and fess up at our next library visit (well actually to tell the truth we waited an extra week). Picking a friendly librarian she laughed it off, joking at least it wasn't a dog training book! So we've added Monty's book to our collection, albeit a slightly personalised copy!

Then a lovely friend gave me this book for my birthday. I can't describe it better than the SBS website.

"From the Margaret Fulton of France comes the ultimate guide to French cooking. Concentrating on simple quality ingredients and divided into regional specialties, La Cuisine is a beautiful and functional companion for any kitchen. Francoise Bernard set out to make classic French dishes accessible for everyone, paring away unnecessary flourishes to get down to a recipe’s true essence. For forty years she published and taught the principle that good food can be simple, easy, and economical. Among her rules: No recipe must have more than four steps, ingredients must be easily available, and each recipe must not have more than one tricky technique."

It's amazing, all my favourites are in there, and a zillion more I should try. So spoilt. Can't wait to cook from them both in the hut kitchen.