Warm thoughts

Still bitterly cold this morning with a biting north wind.  Fern didn't seem overkeen on a second walk yesterday afternoon, having been very happily lying beside a warm radiator, but she agreed to come along just to keep me company.  I think the cold must have got into my computer this morning as it seems most reluctant to do anything at anything like its usual speed.  The piscures in the paper are pretty horrible: 12-foot snow drifts in the north, cars barely visible, and a gritter-cum-snow plough lying on its side.  By way of contrast, there is a picture of sunbathers taken at the same time last year!  Yesterday's paper even mentioned the possibility of rationing of gas being introduced as the country is running very low.  Today, though, we are told that a gas tanker ship ffrom Qatar is due to dock within a few days and that will relieve the situation.  Who would have thought that in 2013 the UK could be in the position of waiting for a ship to arrive to stave off rationing?

Let's get onto warmer things.  One of the regular dishes on the dessert menu at the village restaurant in France is moelleux au chocolat.  This is a chocolate sponge pudding the size of a cup cake and is served warm with crème anglaise (which the French think is like custard but it isn't really).  The centre of the pudding is almost runny.  I suppose both the Old Bat and I order this every second time we eat there.

Our local Italian restaurant here in Patcham also have it on their dessert menu - the only place I have seen it in England - but they call it chocolate soufflé and serve it with vanilla ice cream.  The Old Bat thinks she has - or had - a recipe but is unable to find it.  It doesn't help that she can't remember what the dish was called - it certainly wasn't chocolate soufflé.  Neither of us was entirely sure what
moelleux translates as, my guess being smooth.  Looking it up, I discovered that a very rough translation of moelleux au chocolat would be squidgy chocolate.  But that didn't help.  I have since discovered several recipes in all of which the dish is known by its French name.  Now I'm just waiting for Madam to make it.