Midweek the Dear Leader was away overnight on teaching duties (Fortifying Your Secret Island 101), and Sternest Critic was staying an extra night of his 'reading week' at university before venturing home for his version of R&R, S&S (sleep and steak). I was thus left alone, and was just looking to make a quick and simple supper, and to enjoy something that I would not have cooked if enjoying company.
There are some things that are best eaten alone: curried sprouts probably head that list, with the sauce I made for penne pasta - a sort of reformed putanesca - not far behind. Olive oil was warmed with sliced garlic (lots), and a red chili snipped into it in the vain hope of avoiding chili-eye, then a whole tin of anchovies chopped and added with their oil. When they were all melted together and vaguely cooked through three fresh tomatoes minus their skins were grated in and the lot heated to bubbling point. With lots of pepper and salt and a generous amount of grated parmesan it was utterly delicious, but must have given me breath like a particularly unhygienic medieval French peasant's.
Kippers I feel qualify for the best eaten apart list, unless both of you indulge. When we were on Islay and Jura last summer I opted for kippers at breakfast a couple of times, while DL went for something that when we were in the car later in the day was less assertive. But these foul smelling things (sprout curry apart) do tend to be very tasty. The exception is durian. I had heard much about it so when given the chance to try some (in Johor Bahru, just over the causeway from Singapore into Malyasia) I did. The smell, people said and wrote, is vile, but the taste sublime. They were right about the smell - think a long untended septic tank - but not the taste, which I'd describe as mildly mucal watered down mango. That is something best eaten by other people.
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