4 hours BE, add 6 ounces of red lentils to four pints of water. Bring to boil and remove from heat.
Go to Waitrose to buy 8 ounces of pork tenderloin. On this occasion, very prettily wrapped by the Sunday girl, probably a pupil at Rosebery.
1 hour BE, bring the lentils back to the boil, adjust heat to simmer.
Slice the pork into 1cm cubes and add to the lentils.
Chop two medium onions and add to the growing soup. Keep an eye on the heat to keep the soup on the simmer rather than on the boil.
Chop the stalks from half a dozen button mushrooms. Halve the caps.
Take one elderly leek, remove ends and slice crosswise into four two inch cylinders. Slice the cylinders in half lengthwise.
Take a dozen large left over prawns, once frozen. Cut in half.
Take half a score of small left over boiled potatoes. Remove skins.
15 minutes BE, add the potatoes and chopped mushroom stalks to the soup.
7.5 minutes BE, add the leeks. halved mushroom caps and prawns to the soup. Continue to simmer.
At zero hour, the soup should be thin, rather more see through than translucent. Nearly a clear soup in texture if not in appearance. The potatoes and pork lumps should be soft but entire. The pork lumps and the prawn pieces should have retained their respective textures.
In the absence of white bread, we serve it with brown. But very good soup just the same. The lentils were soft but entire, with the swelling buds showing a nice yellow against the orange of the body of the lentil and with the dead flies just starting to emerge. In the illustration, 'A' marks the place under the lentil bud from where they emerge while 'B' marks an impression of an emerged fly. in real life about 1.5mm long.
Soup followed up with a dream involving pork pies, from a place which associates vaguely to my secondary school. Episode 1 involves a pile of kindle like objects which I try to pack two to a bag, rather than having them lying around loose. In the course of packing, the kindle like objects become more laptop like. All kinds of complicated cables and connections to be undone. I am not sure if I am going to be able to wire them up again. Episode 2 involves getting something for lunch and I elect to use the kiosk for a snack rather than the canteen for a meal. Kiosk has a large range of pork pies, the selling of which seems to involve both measuring the circumference and weighing. Rather thick, bright orange/brown pastry, not like the stuff round the pies from the butcher at Ashburton at all (see 25th April). I select one and make off with it, wondering how I am going to cut it up in the absence of my shut knife, presently in the pocket of the absent picnic bag. Episode 3 involves someone cutting up a pork pie, very neatly, using a mounted cheese wire, rather like the ones they use in Waitrose on the cheese.
On waking, I remember that while the knife had been in said pocket, it was no longer, having been returned to its usual lodging in the study.
PS 1: in Borough Market, in one of the cheese shops there, they use a free cheese wire rather than a mounted one. They also score the rind of the cheese before pulling the wire through, making a rather quicker and neater job of it than the people at the Epsom Waitrose. But then these last, comparatively speaking, are amateurs, or perhaps amatresses.
PS 2: in my inbox this morning there is a missive from the Guardian inviting me to spend several thousand pounds on a creative writing course, which come in half a dozen varieties. Why ever do they think that I need one? How have they got my address? Is there some link up with the fact that I flash my 'My Waitrose' card to get my copy of the Guardian free, rather than paying with anonymous cash? From which transaction, Waitrose could sell my address on to the Guardian? I dare say I have ticked some box saying that they are allowed.
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