From South Africa to Gloucestershire (by sarah)
Alaric's Dad Lionel and his step-mother Lynne are currently over from South Africa where they live. They arrived in depested darkest Gloucestershire last night and for Lionel it is a return to the place he was brought up. Tonight we made them a three course meal along with Barbara - this is the first formal entertianing we have done since moving back into the house after the flood.
So I brought out the table cloths and napkins and the nice butterfly napkin rings David and Michelle got us at Christmas. We made yummy lentil cakes with sage in - yesturday Alaric made some of the same lentil cakes with what he thought was the coriander but it turned out he doesn't actually know the difference between my lovage plants and coriander - he thought the lovage were lemon corriander and thats why it tasted odd :/ - still both types of lentil cakes were good 🙂
They sat upon a bed of salad from the garden and we had various dips. We then had ground nut stew cook using the cabbages from the garden (well what were left off them due to this years cattipillar uinfestation). Desert was home-made yogurt and local honey with hazel nuts (I'm afraid these were bought as Jean had eaten the ones from the hedge row I'd gathered.).
The interesting thing to note was Jean's interactions with Lionel - her langage was completely different from how she speaks to dad - eg:
To Dad, 'Ferfer nut?'
To Lionel, 'Grandfather would you like a nut?'
I thought this comparison was very interesting as was the fact she called him grandfather when Al had introduced him as Granddad but Lynne had said Grandfather. I think little bobble has worked out that you can interact differently depending on whats expected of you!
Anyway I did take a photo of the Snells but haven't got round to uploading it yet - I will also shortly be sorting out my cooking blog which I will link to so that you can see the recipies etc... of the fabled lentil cakes!