Prince Charming

Last weekend was our staff Christmas party. "In January?" I hear you exclaim! When you work in any hospitality, catering or dealing with the public industry, December is pretty well written off. Just finding a date is bad enough, let alone making the time to organise anything. So January it always is. This year work is celebrating its 250th anniversary, or to give it its technical term, the semi-quincentennial. We always have a different theme, so that those with a penchant for dressing up have an outlet for their creativity and urges, whatever they may be, and this year the theme was Famous People in the last two and a half centuries.

I have a very smart black frock coat, as one does, sitting in my cupboard from my last dressing up foray. I was told that I wouldn't be admitted to the party if dressed as an eighteenth century dandy again! Damn, damn and thrice damn I say! So, the big question was how to get away with wearing it again without the risk of being accused of costume repetition, a fancy dress faux pas guaranteed to have me struck off any future party invitation lists? The idea of a highwayman sprang to mind, similar era but hopefully not dandy-esque. So I started to make a list of famous highwaymen, not a very long list I assure you, when the perfect name came to mind. Oh yes, absolutely perfect, the right balance of flamboyance, make up and spandex...Adam Ant! Not the most obvious of highwaymen I grant you, however thanks to his 1981 chart topping "Stand and Deliver" he was on the list! A tenuous link to be sure, but that is all I have ever needed!

I have a new found respect for all you ladies out there. How do you manage to do your make up every day, especially on trains and buses? It is a mystery. It took me over an hour to apply nail polish, eye liner, eye shadow and a beauty spot. And I was sitting at a stationary table!

We all had a fantastic evening, slightly tempered by the fact that I was beaten to the best dressed prize by Super Mario!! Lots of dancing, drinking and of course, good food.

Sunday was pretty well written off. I made it back into the land of the living as the sun was disappearing and realisation dawned that I needed food.

I am a huge fan of eggs and Sunday night is egg night. It doesn't matter how they are cooked, even raw in the bottom of a Bloody Mary! I decided to do Piperade, a favourite of mine that I haven't done for a long time. It is a Basque take on scrambled eggs, very simple and very forgiving, particularly when culinary skills might be lacking. The ingredients I am using are for two people, however they are for my taste, so feel free to amend them in any way you wish.

1.    Allow two or three eggs per person, whisk them up with a splash of milk and salt and pepper. Go easy on the salt as there is bacon in this.

2.    In a heavy bottomed pan, melt a good sized knob of butter. If using salted butter, put less salt in the eggs.



3.    Finely chop half a medium onion, two medium tomatoes and one peppers worth of pepper. If you can use different coloured peppers, it makes for a very jolly plate of food. Use a third of a red, green and yellow pepper, or other colours if you can get them.

4.     Slice two rashers of bacon, fat and all as it only increases the flavour, pop in the pan and cook for a few minutes. Add the onion and peppers and cook until softened. The tomatoes will only need a couple of minutes, so add them at the right moment.

5.    Choose your doughy accompaniment, toast, muffin, baguette etc. As you put the toaster on or bread into the oven, add the egg to the bacon and veg, make sure the pan is good and hot before adding the egg. Cook until it is to your liking. One tip for you to make sure it doesn't get over done is to get the eggs to the stage where you say to yourself "they need a couple more minutes." Turn the heat off, move the pan away from the ring and butter your toast. By the time the butter is on, the eggs will be perfectly done by the residual heat.



Make sure your plates are warm, cold scrambled egg is a sin that can never be forgiven! I always find this tastes best when eaten on your knees, with the plate warming your thighs whilst watching some mindless Sunday night television and, as it happened, the new series of Top Gear coincided very nicely!

Bernard Meltzer, an American radio personality, once said "A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg, even though he knows you are cracked."

Have a good weekend.



My official author photograph!!