A Return

Good Evening All. A very Happy New Year to everyone reading. I hope you all had a wonderful (and indulgent) Christmas and New Year.

I am sorry for the lack of posting lately. I would pretend to be benevolent and say I didn't clutter up your Christmas with further recipes for turkey and stuffing but the reasons are slightly more complex.

Firstly, Christmas is always a hectic time. Although I didn't do much of the catering over the festive period, I was still rushing about a lot.

Secondly, I have had the good fortune of becoming engaged! When I proposed, I was well appraised of the fact that weddings required a lot of planning... however I didn't quite realise HOW much was a lot. So as you can imagine, much of my spare time has been taken up by planning. (If you're interested, my fiancée is writing a detailed blog on the preparations so far).

Now obviously a fairly major part of any wedding is the meal (those in the know will insist on calling it a breakfast but, as it probably won't involve bacon, I won't be jumping on that band wagon) and a fair few drinks. Naturally your friendly food blogger will be turning his eye and opinion to these matters and of course I intend to chronicle them here. Fortunately, my fiancée has an almost equally keen eye for detail when it comes to all things edible and I must admit that most of the suggestions that have been truly revolutionary have come from her.

For the time being let me leave you with a concept I find deeply comforting in so many ways: wedding whisky.

Not long before we got engaged Cat bought me a bottle of Cardhu 12 year old (a rather nice Speyside). Being a sentimental sort, I like opening bottles of malt to mark occasions rather than just for the sake of it. Duly I decided that the Cardhu would be opened to celebrate the engagement. So far so good. Better still, Cat that suggested that (in order to take the edge off of all of the planning) I have a dram every time that planning is engaged in to try and foster some positive Pavlovian associations. It has worked rather well. Planning has become thoroughly enjoyable pass time. So much so I try and engage in it at every possible opportunity. Funny that!

TFB