Better...

Much more optimistic outlook tonight. The meal of the day was a pork, miso and ramen soup from the latest Delicious (from their budget cookery section incidentally). Pork is fantastic and I don't use it enough; the best shop window display I've ever seen was Pentimento's window in Newtown when Pork and Sons came out; the window was full of copies of the book with it's pretty pink gingham cover and tiny pink plastic pigs which had light up noses and soft little oinks when squeezed...

 Anyway, pork. Great stuff. First up, I rubbed the tenderloin medallions down with sesame oil, five spice and freshly ground coriander seeds. This last was a bit of a revelation - amazing smell. Lemony and aniseedy and intensely fresh which seems entirely miraculous coming as it does from dry, hard little seed pods. The pork was roasted in the oven and left to rest. Then, it was sliced on top of a soup of stock, miso paste, mushrooms, thin egg noodles, shallots, choy sum and soy sauce. I even dug out the chop sticks for the occasion. I think that the pork could be used in various ways with these spices and of course the soup base is versatile. 

Flaking a bit this week so I'll give you a joke and then retreat for the evening; this one comes from one of my students:

What do you call Santa's helpers?

Subordinate clauses.

Hah! There aren't enough grammar jokes in the world.