Scran

While most of the UK seemed to be snowed in, my day was rained out. Sheets of grey wet were wept from the even greyer sky. As if sheets of silver silk were blowing gently in an otherwise ridiculously minging 24 hours.

I've always fancied being a "curl up with a book and a brew all day" kind of person and my heart my years for it every single Sunday. So what better way to experiment that today. Nothing much at all, is my favourite thing to do, so here we go.

The day was spent filling the cabin with the smell of slowly simmered stew, casual reading of books and sipping of coffee, then tea, then wine. Read, sip, read, sip, eat.

Continuing the theme of hobbitly breakfasts was a simple duo of fried eggs on toast. Eggs are a marvel if you don't think about their provenance too much, the perfect breakfast, lunch or even dinner food. I think an egg as a snack, unless encased in sausaginess and deep fried, is a thing of hedge dwelling perverts. Although lovely little ovalish globbins, I'm not sure I can stretch to snacking on rubbery cold bouncy chicken ovums. I don't make the rules.

Once in Oaxaca (fancy cunts innit) we had the best eggs anyone could ever egg. The hotel breakfast offering was a simple fruit and pastry buffet with the addition of eggs. Fried. On demand. Odd, but I'm not going to argue. Ever since they have been the benchmark for the breakfast egg. Cooked perfectly with a tiny bit of salt and crackling of black pepper, the shards soaking into the whites, was all it needed.

For me the perfect fried item is one in a slightly too hot pan. Bottom crispy brown, whites just cooked and yolk warm with only a suggestion of solidity. Slip and slid on top of a freshly toasted slice of bread.

Recipe below just so I can show off my eggs.

Some madlad somewhere in a Tesco head office had the unhinged idea of boxing up scotch eggs with soft yolks. Not, by any means, runny. But gel-like. Sort of like a real scotch egg should be, sort of like something out of an arts and crafts store.

I do not complain. I scotch and I egg appropriately. A teaspoon of pickle and another corner of cheese.

Honestly, this needs to end.

Wet Sundays are made for Sunday food. I'm not a religious roast dinnerer – although this is becoming more of a fact later in life – but cold wet weather just calls out for something slow and hearty. Today that was a relatively simple beef stew.

Cooked for about 6 hours, filling the cabin with wafts of onion, garlic, tomato, beef, vermouth (because wine was scarce) is something to behold. I will fight anyone to the death over it's ranking as top 3 sniffy sniffs of all time.

Served with creamy mashed potatoes (with some stilton whisked through it) and simple savoy cabbage.