Comfort over style....

I woke up this morning at 2.15am....that dark, lonely time of night when it seems you're the only one awake in the world. I have a really bad cough at the moment, the kind that sort of strangles your throat at intervals and makes you cough until your neck & stomach muscles hurt & your eyes run and sting. I went downstairs and took some medicine, had a glass of water...but when I went back to bed it all started again. I knew that Paul had a really busy day today, so I took my pillow and went to sleep on the sofa downstairs (the upstairs bed is covered in books and I didn't have the energy to move them about!) Alice was pleased to have a companion and I slept until 5, propped up with cushions....

Of course, I had to bake this morning but when the first deliveries were over I came home, walked Alice & then decided what to have for lunch. It was a really hot & humid day today....little knots of gnats buzz in patches over the water butt...a day for salads and cool cucumber sandwiches. But I was tired, my eyes swollen, my throat sore. I just didn't feel like anything beautiful, pure and summery. Actually there was only one thing I did feel like, and it's what I had in the end:

baked beans on hot, brown, buttered toast. Perfect. Comforting, warming and nostalgic all at once.

It may not have cured me, but I certainly felt better.

I now have a pot of Beetroot & Tomato Soup with Preserved Lemon bubbling gently on the hob. My dad gave me a bag of his wonderful homegrown vegetables yesterday, and this seemed a good way of utilising some of them (we had his roasted new potatoes, cabbage with cumin seeds & garlic & more beetroot baked with feta & a little pomegranate molasses drizzled over last night)

Style reigns in our kitchen once more....but, every now and again, there's nothing like a bit of comfort eating to give your soul a little hug.

xox