Burns Supper

The Sun is not up yet but I am because the shops open at 9-15, or at least the one I want to go to does, which gives me an hour-and-a-half to wakeup, get breakfast done, get dressed and out to be at the shopdoor when they unlock it. Typically when I decide to shop, the sky is looking very ominously grey from where I am sitting. But, I've just had a look outside and it is clearing from the west, the gulls are up riding the thermals and the Sun should be shining soon. So in the meantime I'm going to worry about nothing more other than something tasty to accompany my cuppa.

I'm having to rethink my quantities or method because I don't think that I can get a whole bird in my biggest saucepan but either way I am going to do the recipe I've already shown you which is almost a traditional one (it uses Rice instead of Barley).

I've deliberately bought the smallest bird that I could see on the shelf, and at 1.7Kgs I have just managed to stuff it into my big pot, but I can only get 3 pints of water in. That's no problem though, the rest can go in later when the bird is removed!

15:00hrs The soup has been simmering for about 2 hours and the last time I looked the meat was beginning to fall off the bones so I'm going to lift the bird out now and proceed with finishing the cock-a-leekie dish.

All done and even dusted. All that remains is to get all the kit to the bar, which'll probably take two trips but it's only a 2min walk, and hope that someone comes in to whom I can offer some. One problem though: I've only got 4 soup spoons!!