Stewing

Drearily fluish today. Dragged my butt off to the pharmacist and to the Library to collect the Bartok String Quartets which had already appeared, and quick food shopping. Feeling zombie-like by midday, so not a tremendously productive day. Lorraine is much iller than me. She taxied around this evening, coughing like a docker, and we slugged companionably on the sofa.

I fed her a slow cooked a beef stew, crammed with rosemary, thyme and sage, parsnips, potatoes, carrots, turnip, pearl barley, lentils, garlic, onion and dried Chinese mushrooms and a tin of tomatoes and some beef stock. This turned out to be the best stew I had ever made. I think the key thing was to roll the beef in flour and seal it first by frying it. I also caramelised the onions beforehand. This all academic as Lorraine of course could taste nothing.