We spent a very enjoyable evening with several of The Jams.
As well as those depicted above, Kim was also there, but she did not want to be photgraphed for some reason. Perhaps Kim had told Micky she was going out for a wild night of clubbing and didn’t want him to know that she was, instead, having a decorous evening at our place. Joking apart, Micky was unfortunately unable to join us for the evening. He’d have loved the food.
Actually the central dish had presented us with some logisitcal issues. Janie set her heart on cooking a fusion prawn dish of a part-Peruvian. part-Japanese nature. It required Aji Amarillo paste as a vital ingredient; yellow aji being central to Peruvian cuisine.
To that end, Janie sent me a message on Thursday afternoon asking me to order a bottle of a particular paste through Amazon for her, which I did.
On Friday afternoon I received a message reading…
…arrggh…
…with some photos, one of which is shown below.
I ordered another bottle on next day delivery and complained about the first bottle – the latter problem no doubt being a battle to come as the trader in question seems to have no mechnaism for refunds without physically returning broken glass and gunge to them, which I refused to do.
Anyway, a pristine bottle of the requisite condiment arrived about three hours before the guests. Timely.
But it wasn’t all prawns and aji amarillo…
…oh no…
…there were starters of smoked salmon open sandiches together with some cheesy nibbles and raw vegetables.
Neither Jo nor Max had been to Noddyland before, so they got a guided tour early in the evening, during the drinks and nibbles session.
For the main meal, as well as the prawns, there were patatas a lo pobre, cauliflower cheese (for Kim) and a massive tomato & mango salad…
…as well as breads. The latter, together with crackers, went well with the cheeses (thank you for the cheeses, Kim) that followed the main course.
Max Jamilly had just been awarded his PhD in synthetic biology. I made the mistake of addressing him as Mr Jamilly just the once…then, when corrected, as Dr Jamilly. We agreed that I might be the first person to have spoken that mistake and the first person to have addressed him correctly as Dr Jamilly. It’s always good to be first.
Jo and Kim are planning a trip to Jamaica, so we discussed that and I tried to help out with some varied Caribbean music. Kim tried to convince us that Cuba is not in the Caribbean, but on that point (as on a few other subjects) she found herself outvoted for some reason.
In fact we five chatted about all manner of subjects and were shocked when we realised how late it was, at which point Kim, Jo and Max called time on the proceedings.
What a very enjoyable evening it had been and gosh how it flew by.