Lunch party in the garden

 

On the Sunday before the August bank holiday, four members of Curry Club (a club named after the first meal it ate together rather than any intention for the content of future meals) met together in my garden for the club's second meeting. Earlier meetings had been planned, but Covid got in the way. Then again, if it weren't for Covid, the meeting would probably have been indoors in the evening and not in the vegetable garden for lunch, and I'm very glad we did have it in the garden.

Did I remember this blog and take photos for it? I absolutely did not. I was far too busy with cooking, refilling glasses, listening to the stories of the other three members who came and telling my own. However, slightly less than a week later, I have taken some photos to capture the joy of the garden when Curry Club met. Like today, it was a largely cloudy day, but fortunately most of the flowers that grew in my garden this year (a mixture of self-seeded and sown by me) were bright oranges and yellows, bursting through the cloudiness of the day. In fact, my snails' choice of demolishing my veg and leaving largely flowers made the garden much prettier than it has been in previous years.

I even managed to serve two things from the garden: tomatoes in bruschetta and runner beans as an accompaniment to the pork steaks I served with sauteed apple and Dijon mustard and yogurt sauce. It is a delicious recipe and I can no longer find it online, so I have written it out in my next post.

I would have included raspberries in the meal as well, but at Curry Club, someone else brings the dessert, so no raspberries this time. I may sneak them into a dessert I bring to someone else's meeting. I'm currently harvesting probably around 100 g or more each day and slowly filling my freezer.

My other half's lockdown hobby came up as a talking point at the lunch. He's been making mosaics for paving stones for the back garden:

They are all based on Roman designs, with a few variations to the original design in colour, size and material (the Romans did not have Winckelmans cermaic tiles).

We drank prosecco and I also served Apfelschorle. Apfelschorle (pronounced ap-fell-shore-luh) is a German name for a drink that is half apple juice and half sparkling water. We don't have a name for it in English, which is a shame, as it means we don't tend to drink it either.

We ate in the middle of the grass, which I left long, as I like it a bit wild and shaggy and curling round your feet. In fact, the whole garden looks a bit wild. But that's exactly how I like it.