Confined Cookalong - 6 Feb - and other stories

 How are you all doing? I am tiiiiired, partly because Test and Trace texted me at 6.11am today to confirm again that I haven't got covid, and then at 6.18am to a) really make sure I wasn't nodding off again and b) tell me that doesn't mean I'm allowed to break the rules/go partying/etc. As if. The weather is grey. The South African variant is in my borough. I have meetings from 9.30-5 tomorrow (all one meeting and a fascinating one but still: Zoombrain). 

So firstly, a reminder of stuff we can do indoors: Saturday 6th Feb (ie this one just coming) we are scheduled a Confined Cookalong. I am going to be doing a fairly all day one involving multiple dishes, because I want to try some stuff along the #HeritageKitchen lines: a couple of archive recipes and a couple of Scandinavian things which are loosely my heritage. Having started out the challenge with other people's family traditions, I have realised that I don't actually have much in the way of family recipes - I've *been* the cook for getting on for thirty years. But Heritage Kitchen can mean a lot of things - from old faves to attempting to work out how sherry posset works. 

All of which is to say, join me cooking a thing or two next Saturday, if you like. If not, I shall tweet a lot anyway. 

I haven't had a lot to share other than smugness at my lovely Dishpatch offer (trout en croute with apparently actual caviar sauce, a gorgeous chowder, some smoked cods roe dip which cured me of hating taramasalata, and a weeny delicious apple pie). 

It's all extremely pleasingly wintry lush, and more than enough for 4 meals, so I am definitely making this a monthly thing while All This continues. Just one weekend where I don't have to invent the recipes and put the stuff together is so welcome. 

Tonight it's back to reality, to citrus fennel chicken (new recipe book, first effort not going brilliantly - I am reserving judgement), and to reepating Kate's mistake - not a purple carrot this time, a blood orange that didn't show on the skin, so the white wine-mustard-citrus marinade turned out offputtingly pinky blancmange. It cooked out okay. The washing up will be horrible. Meh.