I should have known. If you start on a recipe that is short on detail but includes the words ‘do not not put in the fridge otherwise they may collapse’ then you should know that how ever damn long it stays in the fridge it is bound to collapse. So it proved.

I picked up The Ivy Cookbook a couple of weeks ago for £2.50. It has been on the side ever since. Then this morning I thought I would make fish-cakes and it occurred to me that The Ivy would have a good recipe. I was right. It is so good that people complain if it is not on the menu.

I made a note of what would be required, including a bag of salmon tails from Wards  from which it transpires I buy my fish from the same place as the the bloke responsible for 7 Seconds to Midnight. From such things are comfortable nights sleep to be had.

In between choosing what to cook and the cook inning I had to spend two hours in a B & Q car-park waiting for the the AA to come along to help kick start a recalretent car. He spent a lot of time plugging in screws and undoing electrics without a great deal happening. As he was about to give up he said he was off to thump the petrol tank. To the surprise of us both this worked.

Back with the fish cakes – they started to sag as soon as they went into a pan to brown. This was despite the time they had been given to firm up in the fridge. Bad temper and general grudge followed them round for the rest of the evening. Despite  all that they tasted very good. But not as good as they would have tasted if they had kept their shaped and had been flavoured with Heinz, as opposed to someone else’s, tomato ketchup.

I should of course blame it all on The Ivy. I have a memory of eating there almost 30 years ago and as a starter I had a plate of oysters. They were very good oysters apart from one which had a smell about it as if it had been dragged up from a shit pit and wasn’t going back. The smell took my nose as I was swallowing it down. I spent the rest of the day, and the next day, waiting for the bad oyster to work its course through my insides.

Nothing happened. But I have kept a eat  wheathered eye on the The Ivy every since.