We had friends to stay last night so there was food to cooked. Saturday morning was the usual cavalcade from the greengrocers on Oxton Road onto The International Store and then down to Wards. Wards had run out of red mullet so I settled for Grey Gunnard knowing that they were far better value. But I do want red mullet next weekend so I will have to get out of bed earlier.

In the greengrocers they had a box of giant field mushrooms some of them at least six inches across. I had not been planning on cooking mushrooms but they looked so good I got a couple, together with a box of cherry tomatoes for soup, another half dozen quince because they were there, aubergines, peppers and beetroot.

Back at home the tomotaoes were cut in half and poured into a pot in which I had been cooking a couple of chopped onions, garlic and red pepper. For flavouring I stirred in a good few pinches of cumin seeds and a knifefull of ras el hanout. After 45 minutes the tomatoes had collapsed and I put it all through a fine sieve.

I cooked the mushrooms at the same time. I placed them in small roasting dish and they were doused well in olive oil. They were a couple of satsumas in the fruit bowl, so I peeled one of those and tucked the pieces under the flap of the mushrooms together with a chopped clove of garlic and some sprigs of thyme.

I covered it all in foil and put them into a warm oven for an hour. By then the mushrooms had started to collapse into themselves. I cut them into slices quarter of an inch thick and arranged them neatly on a white plate. There was some juice still left in the pieces of satsuma and I squeezed this out with the back of a spoon through another fine sieve.

We had the mushrooms as part of the starter. There was also a plate of peppers cooked down in olive oil and garlic for an hour, roasted aubergine with yogurt and the beetroot, boiled until soft then blitzed in the Magimix together with horseradish root and some walnut oil.

The Gunnard were baked in the oven and served on linguine.

The quince went into the oven as well, whole with water and sugar and then served in a bed of whipped cream.