Almost, but not quite, normal

We've had people round for a barbecue, which feels dangerously close to normal. Except not, obviously. Our guests were a couple of friends who live about a 15 minute walk away, so no transport involved in getting here. They used the garden gate to get in, which we opened before they got here so no-one had to touch anything. We cleaned everything before they arrived (they didn't go beyond the kitchen anyway) and we carefully had separate serving utensils for them and us. I even found myself wiping down the ketchup bottle before putting it away afterwards and everything has gone in the dishwasher for a higher temperature wash. Whilst it was lovely to see them, and we're lucky that our back garden has more than enough space to sit guests at a decent distance, it was a strangely stressful planning experience. Normally all I have to worry about when hosting is the food and drinks, this time we had to plan who would be in the kitchen at any one time and what might get touched, as well as clean before and after.

Anyway, on to the food. As well as the usual barbecued burgers and supermarket lettuce, I did a side dish of puy lentil and couscous salad (it's an adapted recipe from Persiana, it's meant to be quinoa but I never have that in the house, so...). 100g couscous, 125g puy lentils, cook both as intended and leave to cool slightly. Chop a large handful of fresh coriander and one of parsley, including the stalks, and a few mint leaves. Finely chop a few spring onions and 250g of tomatoes, preferably cherry or baby plum. Chuck it all in a bowl, add the juice of one lemon and 2 tsps sumac and stir thoroughly, then leave it all to absorb the flavours before eating.  It's a generous 4 people side dish - we have plenty leftover!

I also did some chicken skewers, using a marinade from Ella Risbridger's Midnight Chicken book, which is originally for poussin. Tsp grated ginger, 2 grated cloves of garlic, zest and juice of a lemon (my microplane grater really came into its own for this, and I managed not to grate my own hand for once), two tbsps harissa, 1 tsp sumac and some olive oil. It's meant to have a tsp of white pepper, but I just ground in some black pepper. You are also supposed to scatter the finished version with sesame seeds and fennel seeds before cooking, but that didn't work so well for skewers so I didn't bother. I chopped up chicken breasts, skewered them and left them to marinade for about 90 minutes before barbecuing them, which worked quite well.

One of our lockdown indulgences has been getting bread delivered. A local man has started a small bakery and delivers really good bread twice a week. All my intentions to eat less bread have gone out the window as a result. We got a loaf this afternoon, I finally managed to slice it neatly (at last, my new lockdown skill!) and had that with the barbecued food.

All in all, it was a really lovely evening and it felt so close to being normal. And yet. We're not back to normal, I am a little scared about what is still to come and very hesitant about rushing back to normal, however much I long for it. It has definitely done me good to see people I don't live with though!

Slicing achievement!