In the dark, dark, dark, dark...

Dinner party in Flat Two. Rhy cooks the chilli the night before, misses the near-disaster of mistaking cayenne pepper for paprika. Rhy has not labeled the spices in her rack as she feels she will learn more from smelling and tasting the herbs to get a feel for how they are- rather than just following a recipe when it instructs one to add this, that or the other. Rhy discovered a new life tip; do not ever ever ever get cayenne pepper up your nose. The recipe for the chili.

Rhy decided it would be an excellent idea to make black-bean-chili lasagna. Josh felt this was a good opportunity to use his pasta machine, they make pasta. Anoj looked on in wonderment.

While assembling the lasagna -with creme fraiche in place of béchamel sauce, and smoked cheese instead of parmesan- Josh and Rhy suddenly realise that they have actually undertaken quite a large culinary experiment- they have never cooked pasta before, nor have they attempted to fuse italian food with mexican in this manner. An expedition for sure. However, ten people were due to eat and the show must go on. A salad was also prepared to accompany the meal, Orange and Avocado Salad.

Thankfully it tasted pretty fucking good, agreed all the diners that evening.

A desert had been arranged -rasberry sorbet with almond biscuits. However, during the the interval of courses all guests felt their energies would be better spent if they re-arranged the kitchen slightly, brought in George's decks and had a party.

And that is exactly what they did.

Here are some belated photographs of Jake's birthday;-

In the Devonshire Cat;

The cake;

This post will unfortunately end on a sad note. Fudge, my much-loved and frequently-escaping hamster passed away this week. He liked eating peas and humus on toast. We rescued him from underneath floorboards, found him inside walls... we ripped out skirting boards and almost drilled a hole in my bedroom wall when he escaped. He made some of the most extravagant escapes I've ever seen, using shoes and hats, coat-sleeves, plumbing to his advantage, once he even got out from his hamster ball... on the same day he managed to climb out of his hamster house and get stuck- I had to cut him out. I'm impressed he got into his house and reached a point overnight where he got too big to climb back out.

He was a lot happier when my parents devoted an enormous portion of our living room to a permanent play-pen for him.

I'm really going to miss you Mr. Fudge. :'( :'( xxx