Matthew's Journal

A friend gave me a basil plant a few months back, and despite my best efforts, it is dead. Is there any point keeping it in the hopes it'll revive in the spring, or should I sling it and re-use the pot?

Separately, I planted some alpine strawberry seeds in the summer, and have kept them outside in a seed tray until recently, when I brought them inside. I've been watering them less (when outside, they got quite wet, what with the weather we've been having), but there's now white fuzzy mould growing on the soil. What should I do about it? I don't want to harm the seedlings (there are only a few!), but I think the mould is probably bad...

I stole a pudding recipe from my pudding book today, and it was very good. 200ml of calvados makes for really quite substantial flames, when you pour it into a frying pan, though!

[I made the quantities for 4, but only 2 (cox) apples as there were two of us: peel, core, quarter (and then quarter the quarters) apples; fry in a good knob of butter with 4 tsp sugar to colour. Add 200ml calvados, which will flame. When that's died down, add about 60ml double cream, stir and heat through (so apples are cooked but not mushy), then serve]

We were away this weekend for gayalondiel and navyboy82's wedding, which was lovely. Honour guards, a great service, tasty food, and a fun ceilidh. Many, many congatulations to you both!