COOK'S FIDGET'S

From time to time I fall prey to a strange affliction know to the family as “Cook's Fidget's”, this has nothing whatever to do with the famous Shropshire Fidget Pie, it is a pest while it lasts and today I went down with a bout of this ailment. The cause is quite simple, boredom. When I have cooked the same recipe over and over again a strange restlessness takes hold of me and I begin to leaf through recipe books in search of novelty.

The trouble is that each time I fill the menu with new things the family and our friends find that they favour one of two of the new things and before I know where I am I am back to cooking just a few of the new things over and over and over again, and today it was cookies that caused the trouble.

I have literally hundreds of cookie recopies from all over the world but always I and up baking the same things because that it what people like. Do not misunderstand me there is nothing wrong with that but as I stuck the cherries and walnuts on the shorties for the umpteenth time this year , and by the way on Monday it was dates, I felt once more the desire to innovate, it was like an itch and the only way to scratch was to go in search of something new.

I hied me to the garden centre which has a quite arresting array of cookery books for some reason and at once my craving was satisfied for there in front of me was a beautiful book full of Christmas recopies and the cookie section was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of unusual and attractive biscuits that would be a joy to bake at any time of the year. With the onset of Autumn I could envisage myself snug in my nice warm kitchen baking these lovely goodies and that was it, I bought the book.

Next week while my son is at home I shall try out a few of the recipes to see if they are acceptable to my critical audience and if the y are I shall add them to my repertoire and bake them in larger quantities for guests and friends. Today I made six dozen cookies and this is something I do twice a week every week. The smell of these biscuits as they cook makes it worth doing and all our friends, knowing when my baking days are make sure to arrive in good time to partake of the new batch.

I certainly feel much better just having looked at the new book and I can not wait to get started on the baking.
Dinner tonight was a rich mixed game casserole with carrots, parsnip, swede and some of my home grown sweet potato together with onions and leek. The dish was served with bacon dumplings soft and light and a perfect Autumn dish. It was to have been a chicken casserole but I found the mixed game first and thought “what the hell”.by the end of the meal there was none left so the boys must have enjoyed it.

I hear that it is too become very hot next week so we shall be back to salads and light meals for a while I expect, I have been making stuff like that all summer......oh no! Cooks fidgets has struck again, of could it be just a relapse!