Having got on pretty well with short fat sausages from Bastides from Waitrose, Waitrose stopped selling them. You either had to have them adulterated with cheese or chicken, or go for the own brand with even more exotic adulteration. So no sausage stew for a while. Then I did get around to checking at Sainsbury's, with the resulting two long thin sausages from Bastides of reference 2.
Yesterday we got around to cooking one of them. Much the same form as usual, with the variation that BH had got a couple of big tomatoes from Sainsbury's - dearer than regular ones, but a lot cheaper than the ones which we once bought from the 'farm shop' attached to Denbies, as noticed at reference 3.
Garlic, onions and tomatoes under way. End of phase 1. Followed by a spot of white gloss on the fascia which is most visible from the kitchen window and therefore the most irritating. Especially so as it does not seem that long since it was last painted. This time some white undercoat and gloss from Sandtex, much more like the Dulux Weathershield of old than Weathershield now. Following two coats of undercoat. All dazzling and sparkling in the sun by the afternoon. Spot on the mañana schedule established just before Christmas at reference 4.
End of phase 2. Sausage sliced rather than chunked. Potatoes fresh rather than recycled. A modest amount - 5oz - of tubular pasta in the saucepan just visible bottom left.
Plated up. Perhaps more liquor than I would ideally have liked, despite adding very little water, perhaps a quarter of a pint at the end of phase 1. I suspect the last minute addition of mushrooms contributing and I suppose I could have drained some of it off at the end of phase 2, but did not think of that. In any event, it did not seem to matter when it came to the eating.
We did well over half at the first sitting, leaving one decent sized portion for a ready meal for one at some point.
Not too much activity in the afternoon, but we did run to a spot of Scrabble, breaking the 600 glass barrier for once. Victory to yours truly, entirely proper as I had been duty chef for the middle part of the day.
Quite early on, I was able to place the 'X' on a triple score facing two ways, notching up a respectable 50 points, starred in the snap above. BH fought back gamely, but proved unable to make up the lost ground.
Later on a spot of Wallander, in the original rather than the Branagh version. Now on the second time around, which works perfectly well, not least because we clearly missed large chunks first time around. As previously noticed at reference 5, very noir in the sense that while it is in some ways quite like our own 'Morse', it is also a lot more violent and there are a lot more guns. There are a lot of drugs. There are also a lot of villains who either come from the former Soviet block, the Balkans or the Middle East. Which is probably reflecting a fair amount of anti-immigrant sentiment in some quarters. Possibly including the production team.
It is also more democratic. Wallander might be the main man, but he is much more part of a team than is the case in most of our detective dramas.
And I wonder this morning why the Swedes, considered so very liberal and go-ahead in social matters, do not appear to be moving on legalising drugs. They, along with us, seem to prefer to have a never-ending, expensive war with criminals, rather than try to treat the problem in a more medical way. All very odd. When will we learn?
PS: I read in yesterday's FT that we may be in for some exciting times in the wholesale heroin market, with the Taliban cracking down on production - with Afghanistan presently accounting for a large proportion of the heroin on streets of Europe. At least they are being consistent: being big suppliers of heroin sits a bit oddly with being obsessed with the evils of alcohol and music. Peace be with you!
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/emergency-rations.html. It seems that we have not had a proper sausage stew for more than two months now.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/trolley-493.html. Stocking up, getting on for a month ago now.
Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/09/afternoon-tea-at-hatch.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/feeding-time.html.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-real-wallander.html.
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