Last week was a ghastly sort of a week on several fronts, so I was very happy when the weekend arrived. As usual, I spent most of Saturday afternoon in the kitchen. I roasted a free-range duck from the farmers' markets up the road, with a fabulous tomato, olive and mushroom sauce (a recipe from the excellent Bistro Food by Patricia Wells). Emboldened by my success with a nut tart a while back, I also made a chocolate and hazelnut tart. (I also made a cheesecake, but that was for visiting friends on Sunday so it doesn't really count.)
We invited a friend over, and spent the evening sitting in the library/dining room, enjoying our newly discovered functioning coal fire (the old part of the house is Victorian), eating, drinking wine and chatting about books. Books are an unavoidable topic in this room, as you can see from the pic. What was most bizarre about the evening is that this friend of ours, G, loves to talk about books - but only ever sees the movies of ... He Doesn't Read. I can never quite get my head around this; and every time he comes over, Spouse tries to lend him at least one book. We do love our books.
Anyway, G works in social media, and was telling us that he thinks books as they exist now will soon be a thing of the past and only eccentric collectors (he included us) will buy them. They will be expensive and very much a niche thing ... Hmmm.
