There have been two bits of goods news coming from the cellar.

The first, and most important given the weeks ahead, is that the barrel of beer has developed a good head. This morning it looked flat and un-inspired but by the time I was home for the evening the yeast and slight heat had done its work and there was a thick creamy head and a smell of bread being kneaded and full impression given that sugar was being converted into alcohol.

The second bit of good news was finding a partridge. I knew there was one  down there but it took three good furtles through the chest freezer until I found it. I had wrapped it up well. Along the way I came across two frozen rabbits that had ben down there for far longer than the partridge, a couple of pigs feet waiting for use and a bag full of sloes.

I had the partridge this evening.

A couple of potatoes were peeled and sliced into rounds before being fried in hot oil in a pan. I had a couple of small quinces left over from a friend’s garden and they were peeled and chopped up and added to the potatoes with plenty of salt and pepper. The pan then went into a hot oven whilst a kids tea of noodles and chicken was cooked, eaten and dispensed with.

A single whole partridge was then rested on top of the potatoes and put back into the oven for 40 minutes.

It came out well – the mild gamey flavour of the partridge against the crisp salt of the potatoes and the hint of autumn sweetness from the quince. I ate it listening to dodgy early 1990’s US new wave from a band called Lotion.  They were almost as good as the partridge.

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This year I have been dilatory when it comes to the brewing of beer. Last year for Christmas I made a fine forty pints which were gone by New Years Eve and I then made a further 40 pints around Easter which again were gone more quickly than they should have been.

All at once it appeared I had found a use for the cellar other than using it to deposit junk and put the kids in for their parties.

Fired with enthusiasm  I bought a packet of hops and determined to brew my own beer for the rest of the year. I had all the equipment I needed to make it a continuous process with two brewing bins and barrels. I even dug out an old Teach Yourself Book on winemaking and brewing I had bought forty years ago. It went on my bedside table and I looked through the more simple recipes for making beer and thought that I should buy a masher.

But then nothing. The hops stayed in their packet and the barrels and bins were left unsterilised.

I have been making up for lost time tonight. I had hoped that the house would be filled with the smell of curing hops by now.That didn’t quite happen but there was enough pungency about them to suggest they will add a good kick of flavour.

It may not be ready by Christmas but it still has the potential to all be gone by New Years Eve!

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I forgot to mention that Courtney Barnett was pretty good.

She broke the cardinal rule and changed over guitars as she went along but as both of them made a pretty good noise it stopped mattering after a while. So long as you can make a good noise out of it I am happy and she more than made good noises. There was some Neil Young in the noise that she made but then as she headed into the final stretch and she played Pedestrian at best and then Nobody really cares if you don’t go to the party she hit a grungier stride that brought a big smile to my face.

Saturday afternoon and there were two crabs sitting in the salad drawer of the fridge in the basement. Wards have started to take over a large part of the aisle that they occupy in Birkenhead Market. The stall on their right has now got a vast lobster and crab tank installed in it. They are bathed in a blue light. A live crab provides a good opportunity to get your hands dirty and indulge in some proper cooking.

I had woken up thinking of crab. One of my favourite recipes is crab with linguine – just cooked pasta into which a mixture of crab meat, lemon juice, garlic, chilli and olive oil is stirred – but that felt too light for a Saturday night. After some digging around I found a recipe for a crab jambalaya which was sold to the kids as a kind of paella.

The two crabs were cooked in salty water for twenty minutes. After being allowed to cool I went at them with a nut-cracker and picking tool listening to Talking Heads and with a glass of beer to hand.

Forty minutes later I was left with a pile of brown meat and white meat and suitably dirty fingers. The detritus went back into a pan with some olive oil and after it caught some colour water was added and simmered for twenty minutes or so to make a rough crab stock. I was determined to wring every once of flavour out of them.

The dish was straight-forward to make. Onions and sweet peppers were cooked down in olive oil. Garlic and chillies were stirred in along with a bay leave. After some more cooking I stirred in a couple of cups of the tomato soup that was left over from lunch, rice and the crab stock. A lid went on and I sat down and read the paper for twenty minutes. The heat was turned off and it was all left to settle for 15 minutes whilst I read some more of the paper.

It went down surprisingly well.