A Disasterous Meal And The Recovery Therefrom

E and I were chatting on email yesterday. She told me that the cooking gods were smiling on her.
So that’s where they were last night! I was wondering, because clearly they were nowhere near my kitchen.

I set out last night to expand my glorious repertoire of chicken breast recipes, and at one stage it was going quite well. Very well, in fact. Stupendously well!
I mixed up some honey and the juice of a fresh lime. I added some secret spices and basted the mixture all over the breasts. (That’s right, I keep saying “breasts.” I can’t help it. It would be far too cumbersome to write “chicken pectoral muscles” every time. And anyway, I don’t even know if they’re called pecs in chickens. But I digress.) I used my lovely Bauer frying pan and I set them breasts a sizzling on the hotplate. Hot breasts. Ok, I’ll stop it now.
Like I said, things were going really well. The smell was incredible. This was going to be the meal of the week.

And then I stepped out of the kitchen for two minutes. Just two minutes. I wandered into my bedroom, where I was halfway through sorting out the pile of paper clutter that has been adorning my bedroom floor for the past 8 months or so, under the disguise of “filing to be done.” So I threw away the top paper and then I looked at the next one. I put it on the keeping pile. Then I picked up the one after that. And before I knew it I was half way through the pile and smelling a funny smell…..

I charged through to the kitchen, in the nick of time to not rescue the breasts.

I spent the rest of my evening scraping the layer of black caramelised honey from my supper and then eating what remained. When I say caramelised, what I really mean is “honey incinerated into a rigid black layer as hard as plastic”, and that is not very nice to eat.

So tonight I decided to cut my losses and I treated myself to a lovely meal at Jamaica Me Crazy with L. For those not in the know, it is quite a fun little restaurant in Woodstock. Caribbean theme. Their food is very yummy. The service is a bit crap, but that’s pretty much Cape Town for you. I had two starters because I couldn’t pick just one thing. I had the jalapenos stuffed with feta and deep fried. I thoroughly recommend them. The buffalo wings were perhaps not the house speciality. They were also deep fried (which I was not expecting) and a trifle bland. I say go for the Loco Cocos anytime you are there. (That would be the name for the stuffed chillies.) Too delicious!

I managed to restrain myself to a modest two glasses of wine, largely thanks to L's inlfuence - she had some work to read through before tomorrow. And so here I am, home at a very respectable hour and posting my blog in time to get a semi-early night. I am sure that I will be very grateful tomorrow morning, when I drag myself out of bed with the sun still far below the horizon.


In parting, I am going to leave you with a pic of the city from Tafelberg Road. I am afraid that I am now enamoured of the photo uploading functionality and will be treating you to various shots as the fancy takes me. Lucky yoooou!