Brace yourself!

It’s official – I’m a walking pain in the neck. Since having my hair washed (and cut, and anti-greyed, and generally polished) at the hairdressers last week, my neck and shoulders have stiffed out to the point where I’ve been carrying myself like a particularly fragile Thunderbirds puppet for days, and last night I was almost crying with pain trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Eek, aargh and yuk – it’s not nice at all, but the only thing I can do about it is overdose on Ibuprofen, wrap myself up in a soft purple blanket, sit myself on the sofa in an oddly formal way and watch endless daytime TV. “So what’s new?”, I hear you say. Don’t be facetious – I’m suffering, here! Fortunately, the haircut was worth it (well the colour was, at least. The style is actually a bit mullety; kinda, Faces-circa Rod Stewart. But like the neck pain, this too will pass).

All this sort of explains why I’ve been a bit slow-to-post over the past week. I could do as I so often (lazily) do and resort to bombarding you with gems from this week’s issue of Venue (a rant about women and alcohol, a couple of theatre reviews, a comedy show review and a tale of two girls about town living it up at Bath’s Riverside Café), but they can wait in the wings until another slow day, while those living in the vicinity can read them all right now anyway – alongside other stuff written by folk who are not me! – for the price of a McDonalds cappuccino (no prizes for guessing where I think the money is best spent). Anyhoo, talking of Venue, the rather nice mention given to this very blog in last week’s issue has put my visitor traffic up by (attempts to work out what an extra 150 visitors last week has put the percentage up by, but sadly fails) … a lot. So, hello newbies, and welcome to the Disco! Rest assured that I don’t usually start a new post off with a bout of grumbling. But, in response to emails from more than handful of those new visitors, yes I do actually sometimes waffle on about food – and right now, being housebound makes me hungry. So tonight, kids, I will be cooking one of my favourite ‘store cupboard’ yummies, the recipe for which goes something like this:

Take a packet of interesting, proper sausages (ie, the kind you find at the Farmers’ Market - in this instance, prime smoked porkers from the Sandridge Farmhouse, Wiltshire). Brown them in olive oil, in a big pan. Once browned, take them out and put them on a plate while you fry off half a red onion and a medium sized leek with a bit of smoked paprika. Drain and rinse a large tin of butter beans and add them to the pot with a tin of chopped tomatoes, a good slug of red wine and a generous grinding of black pepper. Bring everything to almost boiling point, return the sausages to the pan, semi-lid it, reduce the heat and simmer together for about 40 minutes (if you have a bay leaf and some fresh thyme or rosemary to hand, add them to the party too). And there you have it! This is lovely served just as it is, or with a couple of big chunks of fresh crusty bread (and, of course, the remains of the bottle of red wine you opened at slugging point). Gruyere cheese – either melted on top of slices of French bread or just sprinkled on top of the casserole – adds an extra, ‘cheffy’ dimension, the like of which makes anybody lucky enough to be eating with you say, “gosh, you’re such a brilliant cook”. Slurp, bask, enjoy (neck brace/shrieking and yelping as you cook optional).

Okay, I’ve endured wincing at the computer for long enough – and anyway, ‘60 Minute Makeover’ is about to start on TV. Pass me the purple blanket, minion! The sofa beckons …