There was quite a lot of cooking done over the weekend. So much in fact that I had to spend Friday at home to make a start on it.

Friday started with me picking up a barrel of beer from The Peerless Brewery in Birkenhead. With that in the back of the car I went onto the Grocers to pick up boxes of cherries and figs, aubergines, cucumbers, four or five different types of tomato, including some small Italian green tomatoes, which were the best tasting, onions and aubergines, beetroot and a great hulk of a watermelon.

It was then onto The International Store for long thin green peppers, bottles of chickpeas, pistachios, ground almonds and lamb chops.

Back home I put two bags of mograbiah in a large bowl of water to soak, the beetroot went into a pan of water and was brought up to the boil and…