… and the Scottish one
This months trip to the glamorous hut that is The Loft was also the scene of a communal meal of epic proportions; in the planning if not the consumption.
Pre meet the call went out for people to acquire fruit for a club Scrumble – and boy was that call answered. Prizes and thanks for
- volume to Carmen and Simon with about 10Kg of apples,
- variety to Karen provide a fantastic range of red current and blackberries,
- Margaret for a huge bag of glorious blackcurrents (my fav)
- The University of York playing fields (blackberries) harvested by Peri's fair/fare hand
While my Chopping Wenches® (Carmen, Debra and Cef) made short work of the vegetables, salad, chicken and other stuff, I managed to swear a lot in keeping with Annie's requests. Meanwhile over on planet Peri a whole team fruit peelers were undressing the apples, and soon (with the requisition of Carmen's butter to make up for my dyscalculia) we had 6 massive magnificent mega-crumbles awaiting the oven
No 'leccy meant no whizzer for the soup so I had to improvise with a masher but after not too long the rather chunky Leek and Potato soup was served to hungry masses. By this time we had a nice condensation stream along the walls as ventilation was restricted to the 2 inch around the door – and it was bloody freezing outside.
The roasted carrots with garlic and coriander – (expertly chopped by Donal) were ready, chicken, mushrooms and broccoli cooked and so in go the crumbles, the pasta water is set to boil …. Err 5 mins later and there's no boiling and little heating action going on. The gas is running low, temparature is dropping and we have no backup plan. Margaret and Gordon check out The Solitary – club members all in bed without any gas, all gas bottles empty – BUGGER ! After some indecision we have a communal bread gathering (at least 5 loaves appear) and its a chicken salad with Salmon and broccoli. Having lost control, the portions seems a little skewed but ho hum we all got to see it pass by. It wasn't quite the Carb and Protein feast I'd planned – salad not being the ideal hill food but we ate well.
But what of the crumble? It wasn't cooked and the oven was struggling – so a call went out for cheese and biccies and another feast was had. By the time we had scoffed 3 varieties of mature Cheader – some nice smoked cheese from Gordon and excellent crackers from Margaret and Cef's oatcakes – amongst other generous donations, we were all stuffed.
Of course during this time most people had managed to down a bottle of wine each so I broke out the emergency hip flask of whisky and that evaporated quite rapidly despite the questioning of its quality (no it wasn't a Gordon special) !
By the time midnight arrived the crumble was cooked so we ate them – and boy were they good if short lived. Now were were really stuffed and all that remained was some swearing and shouting at each other – otherwise passes as conversation.
"Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour had gone by before we retired to rest."
LET THE SNORING COMMENCE
I suppose that from where you were sat, the swearing, shouting, and borderline alcoholism was probably communal. From where everyone else was sat, it all seemed to come from one direction 😉
top marks to rob anyway for the organisation of the epic meal – shame it was undermined by the fuel crisis!