What`s for dinner Clarey?: The 2020 edit

What`s for dinner Clarey?: The 2020 edit:  Cheat's creme brulee for Effoff 2020 party. I'm so glad to see the back of 2020! To me the key to happiness is all in the edit.  Wh...

The 2020 edit

 Cheat's creme brulee for Effoff 2020 party.

I'm so glad to see the back of 2020! To me the key to happiness is all in the edit.  When I posted jolly Christmas pictures this year, it was of Champagne corks popping, yummy dinners and smiling faces. No one in the right mind would want to see that I burned my roasties on Christmas day and had to resort to M and S frozen ones to save the day.  I didn't capture the moment I dropped the nut roast on the floor next to the cat litter tray and scooped it up without telling anyone. Or when I nearly cut my finger off because someone had smashed my favourite glass and shoved it down the plug hole to hide the evidence.

In my home movie in my mind all these calamities have been erased. The secret is in the edit you see. All I remember are the best bits because my memory is most firmly seated in my heart.

2020 has to be shelved, like a dodgey wedding video of a disastrous marriage, never to be watched again. Just archived , so we dont repeat the same mistakes again.

I should have known on New Year's Eve 2019  when I was at a lovely party and was struck down with a tummy upset just before the strike of midnight it was going to be a shitty year! My friends were calling me to come for a photo, when I was in fact having a mystic poo!!! The most awful start to the shitstorm that followed!

The schools and Homeless charity I work for were amazing last year. They remained open and really pulled out all the stops to provide continuity,  calm and kindness for all lucky enough to enter in.

In my edit of 2020 , I have tried to sweeten all the losses by being grateful for the gains... sadly people lost this year, whose funerals we could not attend are rightly not so easy to forget. Our lovely Steve- unforgettable. 

As the year ground to a halt I had the exciting task of cooking  a Christmas feast at the Homeless charity I work at. Understandably volunteers were thin on the ground and I prayed for a Christmas miracle.

The very next day an email from the very posh Rothay Manor hotel dropped into my inbox. Could they help with anything for Christmas?

I sent a huge wish list, hoping for perhaps some pigs in blankets! By December 21st they delivered 20 turkey crowns , hams, sacks of vegetables even duck fat and crackers! It was incredible and during Christmas week we served all our clients an abundance of food and the TLC they craved. Quite simply love on a plate.

So 2020 has gone and has been stuffed with amazing acts of kindness leaving me feeling hopeful it has brought the best out of us all.

The human spirit can endure great sadness, the brain files away traumas so we can go onwards and upwards and survive. It's all in the edit, if we remembered the pain of child birth, there would only be only children!

We have survived and 2021 offers the promise of healing for the entire World.

My story was so long, my recipe will be super short.

Cheat's creme brulee

1 pot posh madagascan vanilla custard

Frozen berries

Liqueur of choice

Brown sugar

In a ramekin put the frozen berries with a slug of liqueur. Top with posh custard. Sprinkle a dessert  spoon of brown sugar and blow torch until cooked.

Finito.

Time to set fire to the rains of 2020. May 2021 be better for us all xx