gardener and cook

One answer to yesterday's parting question might be Sedum acre, but any other ideas will be gratefully received.  I did suggest box to the Systems Administrator, who harrumphed and said that the previous box hadn't grown at all.  I had to point out that given it hadn't been fed or watered and weeds had been allowed to grow round it, the fact that it was still alive at all was a minor triumph. The SA's book on Planting your Garden Railway wasn't very helpful.  The list of plants for dry shade was short, and the main thrust of its advice was to improve the soil and remove the source of shade, but the soil in our front garden is almost as resistant to improvement as Lady Macbeth's little hand to the perfumes of Arabia, and if we remove the source of shade that leaves us with an uninterrupted view of the lettuce field, and no shelter at all from the easterly winds.

Now it is windy, and the garden looks curiously uninviting.  Unfortunately it's forecast to be windy tomorrow, and the day after that.  Meanwhile I am taking a turn as chief cook and bottle washer, so the morning disappeared in a haze of shopping and cooking.  I went to inspect the courgette plants after breakfast, and found that one of them had suddenly grown a small marrow since the last time I looked at it.  I thought that it must be a very young marrow, and that if I diced it into bits and turned it into ratatouille nobody would notice that it was no longer a courgette, so I got a packet of peppers and some tomatoes while I was out.  I follow Keith Floyd's instructions for ratatouille, other than that I don't bother with any parsley, and he is emphatic that it's very important that each vegetable be cooked separately before combining them.  So I do, and it makes very nice ratatouille, but takes absolutely ages, by the time you've fried onions, and then peppers, and then courgette, and then the tomatoes, and then cooked them all up together for ten minutes. At twenty to one it was still boiling in the saucepan, and we were supposed to be eating it cold, or at least at room temperature, with the one o'clock news.

There is still two thirds of the marrow left, and tomorrow we are having the Greedy Italians' courgette and cheese bake.  I reckon that part of the deal with cooking is that so long as you don't insist on serving up things that the rest of the household actively hate or are allergic to, you can make what you like, and I like vegetarian food.  Tonight we're having vegetable curry.  When the SA asked whether I'd got tomorrow's supper as well I just said Yes, so that the SA couldn't lodge an advance objection to the bake, but I did soften and buy some sausages for Wednesday.