SIX

I couldn't let this day go past without a post. It's six years since I started this blog. Six years which have included two big moves, a few new jobs, travel to Paris, Santorini, Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, New York (and New York, and New York, and New York) and more. There have been snow days and beach days, birthdays, and of course, best of all, our wedding day.

For the last two Sundays I've made a list. Partly a shopping list; fruit, milk, things for our sandwiches during the week, and partly what we'll be making for dinner. Trying to plan up to Wednesday, trying to avoid the daily what's in the fridge, what do we want, falling back on the same mix of meals. Last week that meant trying Nigella's orzo with peas and pancetta on Monday and remembering to make double rice with our curry on Tuesday so that we could have fried rice for dinner on Wednesday. If there's one food related habit I want to stick this year then this is it. Such a small thing to plan for a few days, such a relief to go to work, come home and know that there is a plan.

I had planned to make lamb shanks tonight. Planned to settle them down with carrots and parsnips in the oven. Planned to sauté some greens, pour some wine, sit down with candles at the table for a comforting meal fit for a day that started with snow (it hasn't stuck but there should be more to come). I had thought about baking some of the cookies that have been living in the freezer since Christmas Eve, or maybe the sherry cake that Jess wrote about at the end of November. We were going to sit up trying to catch The Golden Globes, or at least some of the red carpet. We fell at the first hurdle. We should have gone to the butcher yesterday, should have known better than to expect Tesco to have the lamb we needed. We stood in the aisles trying to come up with alternatives, they all felt like a poor second-prize to the meal we wanted. The bolognese in the freezer, the cauliflower curry we eat almost weekly, sausage and mash... We decided to have a complete rethink, we decided on homemade pizza. A tomato sauce with garlic and thyme, mozzarella, shredded brussels sprouts, pancetta. I'm drinking a Campari and soda while the dough rests, Chris is having a gin and tonic while he organises music on the laptop, I'm trying to decide whether to bake or whether we'll have some of the brown bread ice-cream leftover from Christmas. Maybe we'll just have a cup of tea, dig into the party sized bag of pretzel m&ms that Mum bought us back from the States in October, and curl up to watch the red carpet.

Here's to six and here's to you, thank you for following along.