Mid-afternoon on a hot summer day with thunderclouds threatening. Curry making time.
Daughter, 5, a vegetarian. Son, 7, an omnivore. Wife agnostic eater.
Time for an experiment. Put BBC on podcast, extract sharpest knife.
Start brown rice with lentils boiling. Chop red onion, garlic, ginger, red and yellow peppers. Gently fry in olive oil, add two teaspoons curry paste. Stop Luc dragging Madeline around lounge.
Dice free range chicken fillets. Throw into centre of that cast iron pot with the now golden onion, garlic etc. Go check on wife, who is editing pics and text on deadline. Make stupid comment. Leave before being attacked.
Chicken looking well-seared. Add Korma paste. Add lemon rind (fresh), add juice one big fat lemon. Add one tin chopped Italian tomatos.
Finely chop and swiftly add two fresh apricots add. Tell no-one. Look for the litchis. Damn, kids have eaten them all. Oh well.
Simmer a decent while, add salt and wife’s homemade mango chutney. Mmm. Send kids to get lots of coriander leaves. Discover we have a pomegranate shrub in yard! Yay. And how have we not noticed in 5 years?
Anyway, grind dry coriandre seeds and toss a teasoon full in.
Simmer another 30 min. Rice ready.
Dish up, extract chicken from daughter;s plate, add to son’s.
Serve sitting on front steps as clouds disappear.
“How is it?”
“Delicious!” from two mouths. Silence from office, wife plate empty.
Viva summer fruits.
