Several of us had agreed a get together for the first weekend in February, although most of us for one “busy life” reason or another didn’t much fancy that weekend.
In the end, we bowed to the inevitable and rescheduled for early April instead. I sensed Andrea’s mild frustration with this change of plan and in any case she and I hadn’t had a proper catch up for ages, so I suggested that she and I meet up for dinner early February anyway, but midweek.
So that’s what we did.
In the end I thought that a meal at Chez Ged would be the best place for a proper catch up, much like a similar catch up I had with John White at mine in December.
Again, it was Alastair “Big Al DeLarge” Little who did most of the work, not least an amazing borscht and then his signature veal ragout.
Al also had some Radicchio Rosso di Treviso (Il Tardivo, obviously), which Janie loves in her salads and which I thought would add a little something to the salad I made to accompany this meal. I’m glad I did that; I had forgotten that Andrea lived in Italy for a while, so she recognised the special radicchio straight away and said she thought that she hadn’t tried it since her days in Italy.
I was out of Italian red that evening (tut tut) but had a very jolly Spanish red that could do a similar job.
Anyway, the homely-yet-cheffy meal did the trick; it gave us a chance to catch up on each other’s news and prepare psychologically for the slightly bigger gathering to come in April.
Andrea sent me a note the next day saying that she was going to attempt to cook a borscht for her and Amy at the next available opportunity. I might have to wait until April to find out how that went. Messy business, making borscht, in my view. Best left to the experts like Big Al.