I have a huge amount of work to do, so of course the right thing to do was to suggest that the Gentleman Friend, who was planning to go out to dinner with a friend for the latter’s birthday, instead invite him over and I would make dinner for them. So he did, and instead of working I cooked three barnsley lamb chops with a sorrel sauce, chard and mushrooms, new potatoes with chillies and mint, a big salad, and something that was half gooseberry and half apricot crumble. It turned out very good, though the chops were intimidatingly large and I almost never cook meat anyway. One was overdone, one was underdone, but luckily the celebrant’s was perfect and he was really touchingly grateful as this sort of basic English food is his absolute favourite – plus I used gluten-free flour for the crumble, so he didn’t get sick afterwards. All in all quite a success, but I do have a lot of work.
A Barnsley chop is a tasty thing. It’s a cut with a huge ribbon of fat, quite delicious. But also very large.