An Aunty's Lunch

 Chocolate-free Fruit and Nut Truffles

My husband’s aunty who is 85 and very spry comes for a birthday lunch. She’s a pleasure to cook for as she loves vegetables and doesn’t mind not having pudding. So she fits perfectly into our current eating regimen.We sit on our small patio among the pots of daffodils and tulips, drinking apple juice. When it clouds over and the temperature drops a bit we come inside.

I serve lemon baked fillets of seabass, an emerald green salsa verde but made with parsley and coriander instead of basil, roasted aubergines, red onions and peppers, a bowl of tender purple sprouting broccoli and soft spears of asparagus, and cubes of butternut squash flecked with nibs of red chilli ( thank you Paul Hollywood for that recipe).

For afters, with her camomile tea, we have a plate of my Fruit and Nut Truffles  - just almonds and sunflower seeds, raisins, dried apricots and lemon juice -  ( no chocolate, cream or sugar in sight) rolled in coconut shreds accompanied by sprigs of crisp grapes.  She brings a bag of caramelised peanuts from her recent trip to Seville which my husband loves and which aren’t allowed on our diet -  but since it’s a special occasion...

Before she leaves she says she notices a difference in my husband but doesn’t have a chance to say what. I’ve been noticing it for a few weeks now - just a slight shift, missing more words, more meanings.....

Later, when I take back the packets of jumbo oats and the sunflower seeds that my husband bought at Waitrose a few weeks ago, the nice woman serving me says,

Oh, I remember your husband. It was a while ago. I helped him find the oats. Are they no good?

I explain about jumbo and porridge and why he wouldn’t know that jumbo means big and porridge means small. But I’m really impressed and touched that she remembers him...like belonging to a community. Makes me want to shop at Waitrose all the time.....

(No blog tomorrow - on a gardening mission at my big sister’s....)