Friday night and the youngest daughter and I seem to have covered a lot of ground including a general discussion around last night’s Question Time and the general unpleasantness of Rod Liddle.

By way of compensation she put in an order for pasta bake, chocolate and coke, and I cooked a partridge.

The partridge was browned in hot oil for a few minutes. Chopped ham was added along with a sliced onion. It was all allowed to cook. As it took on colour a good shake of sherry vinegar went in, followed by some white wine, a bay leave and few strands of saffron. As that started to cook a diced potato went in along with a carrot which had undergone similar treatment. A few pine-nuts were shaken over just before the lid went on for an hour under a low heat.

Ten minutes or so before we ate I stirred in a handful of chopped kale. It was all very good and we listened to Courtney Barnett.

There was also a lot of garlic along the way – fresh from the garden. Let us hope we can have some next year after the bastard squirrels have been at work at what was planted last weekend.

It may have been said before, very possibly by me – here, but there is no greater pleasure for the home cook than spending half an hour or so picking over half a roast chicken left over from Sunday so as to separate out every last bit every last bit of good edible meat from the carcass. If the home cook is going to really indulgent he or she can suck at some of the bones before they go in the pot marked for stock.

That is how I spent some time earlier this evening before assembling a meal for the children.

I started with a bag of young spinach which was mixed with sliced onions and tomatoes.

I then toasted some pitta bread. They were started off in the toaster until puffed up and ready to be split. Once split they were laid out under a hot grill with a smattering of olive oil.

As they continued to toast I made a dressing with olive oil, pomegranate syrup, good vinegar, a dash of sugar, cinnamon and sumac.

Pieces of chicken were scattered over the spinach leaves, the toasted pitta was crushed and scattered over the chicken and the dressing was smeared liberally over it all.

I expected complaints but to my surprise it was attached with gusto and enthusiasm.

It was almost as good as the steak sandwich that was reconstructed last night.

There has been a suggestion that I maybe getting too old to keep posting up pictures of myself with a courgette flower in my mouth all available for the world to see.

That may be right – but I can think of no better way to go about picking up something straight from the ground and putting it into your mouth. There is always a hint of danger about because who knows if a baby slug or snail may have curled itself up and hidden away in one of the slight kinks or there may be a gobbet of soil thrown up by rain waiting to  act as grit against teeth.

But get one free of those hinderances and you have a small treat like no other. There is crunch and cleanliness and a slight peppery taste with hints of parmesan and the taste of the dirty soil.

We ate a roast chicken this evening stuffed with garlic, with roast potatoes and carrots and gravy. Does man know of a better meal.

This afternoon I was halfway through planting 100 tulip bulbs when it occurred to me that they would all be looking their best whilst we will be halfway through our three week holiday in Australia. Hopefully there will be a few dark heads left by the time we got back.

It has been a warm October day and prompted by a conversation on garlic on the way to last night’s rugby game I was up up in the morning and out buying some seed garlic to plant for next year. It was whilst buying those I saw the tulips and remembered how every Spring I vow to plant some more and never get round to it. So whilst will we have a veritable Dutch streak running through the garden next year I will be on a beach with clear yellow sand twitching at the thought of those tulips in the garden without me.

Luckily the garlic will need another couple of months before it is ready. I planted that as well and then split the leeks.

I had bought the leeks in Bantry Market back in July. They came in small clumps of three or four. I was given some instruction on what to do with them but i think that at the time I was more worried about when Ma Murphy’s might be opening and if we could squeeze in a pint before heading back to the Cottage.

I had put them into the ground as they came but a month or so later they looked as if they were starting to crowd each other out. So I went down the bed digging out each clump and teasing them apart before scrapping out a separate hole for each delicate stem.

The leeks are planted in the the two beds next to the garlic so if the all come up well next year we shall be able to have some allium feasts! A good job I have the Lindsey Bareham book on cooking with onions as she includes a large number of recipes for garlic and leeks as well.

In order to plant the garlic I had to remove the last of the courgette plants. I was able to find three courgettes that will be good enough to eat next week and one final flower to eat before they come again next summer.