Poisoned!

Oh help! I think I might have poisoned Esteemed Partner!

He normally has a stomach of iron because, like me, he was brought up on left-overs,  and we both spent our childhoods living in schools. We share fond memories of endless catering packs of dried 'Chicken Chasseur' being served up throughout the holidays - in his case on the family yacht, in ours in the VW camping van.

We both had 'war mothers' who believed in saving everything, economising, and no waste. In EP's case it meant hard loo roll, and margarine instead of butter, even though his Mum was a 'hon' and came from one of the most prestigious families in the land. In my case every leftover was saved in a plastic pot in the fridge, down to the last pea.

So we are both proud of our instinctive embrace of the left-over, and our resulting little weekly compost bins.

Yesterday, I came up with the perfect occasion to use the out of date Fois Gras.  Granny (82) had driven the eighty miles from her home in Dorset to listen to Beloved Daughter play "Oops I did it again" by Britney Spears on her flute in the school music competition, followed by supper and staying the night.

The little round tin of Fois Gras was centre piece on the kitchen table.  It was so discoloured you couldn't read the exact sell-by date (I wasn't telling the whole truth in my last blog), and it sat in two orange rings of fatty rust. I prepared a version of Melba toast using sliced wholemeal bread in the toaster, and opened our treat with a flourish.

There was some brown stuff inside with white on it, and a few grey/blue marks around the edge.

"Just what it's supposed to look like," I announced, and sniffed it. It smelt fine.

I cut off the blue bits and as Granny, EP and I demolished it we discussed how old it really was.  We decided that Granny had brought it back from a trip to France around ten years ago.

It left a weird sticky sort of layer in your mouth after eating it, but tasted fine.  We had Lidl's best Three Fish Bake after that, followed by raspberry cheesecake and profiteroles.

This morning EP complained of having felt queasy all night and getting no sleep. I felt a bit sick and headachy, probably from mixing Cava with white wine and red wine. Granny was positively bouncing, and did all the washing up.

I have left messages on EP's mobile and landline, but no answer.  I hope he's not in hospital.

Meanwhile may I reassure anyone who might once have been interested, I would never try serving such a thing to guests or clients!!