I can relax. My courgettes have now caught up with the best of those in Oxton and we have flowers. I will be munching them down within the week. The courgettes themselves still have a few weeks to go and will probably reach their pomp whilst we are away in Ireland so we can come back to a bunch of green monsters.

Behind the courgettes the quince bush is heavy with small fruit. I am sure it has done this in previous years and they have all come to naught.

In the kitchen we have been eating chicken.

Before the Father’s Day treat of a walk through the Secret Garden’s of Oxton we had some presents and one of them included Diane Henry’s book on chicken.

Now Diane Henry is responsible for some of my favourite recipes. They come from her book Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons and include what she calls Pearl Diver’s Rice – which is basically a very rich Persian rice topped off with honey and more sweetness in a dish of monkfish with caramelized onions, raisins and more honey.

so I have been quietly excited about the idea of her doing a whole book on chicken.

We were not disappointed last night when I cooked some vietnamese caramelized ginger chicken. There is something about the combination of fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and chilli that always makes me want more.

Coming from work there wasn’t time to marinade the chicken for quite enough time but it still took on some of the flavour it needed. A vegetarian alternative was made with aubergine and sweet potato.

We then finished the leftovers off for lunch with a salad made with rice vermicelli, radish and cucumber and a dressing made with more chilli and garlic, ginger, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce.