Oh smoked paprika!

It may appear that I have neglected my tales already, but fret not, I have a good excuse.....an over indulgent weekend that picked me up and showed me a great time but dropped me off on Monday morning with a sore throat and the premature stages of the flu and an extra kilo of winter waistline....therefore any spare time since then has been spent negotiating with this flu, giving offerings of Berroca, fresh apple juice and nutrient packed food in a hope it may retreat on the grounds that I have seen the error of my ways and am willing to reform.

The weekend opened with Friday night pizza, smothered in garlic and laden with roasted vegetables coupled with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc......this was shortly followed by a sugary blur of connoisseur ice cream...both cookies'n'cream and strawberry....then the night rounded itself off with a Lindt triple selection of 70%, Dark Orange and Classic Milk accompanied by a truly delicious bottle of Irongate Sweet Shiraz. The weekend seemed to set Friday night as its benchmark and tried hard to not be outdone.

Saturday morning thankfully showed some restraint, serving me a pleasant breakfast of poached egg on wholegrain toast served with pan fried roma tomatoes and a spicy tomato relish. By 2ish I found myself tucking into the most amazing late lunch I have had since..... I dare say Christmas. I am not usually a lunch person. I love breakfast, just the thought of all the potential things I could eat is enough to get me excited the night before. Dinner I adore, for many reasons, I get to look forward to it all day and think up all the things I would like to cook, I love going out to dinner, the ritual of it, whether it be casual or formal......but lunch, lunch just doesn't seem to excite me at all, I'm not exactly sure why, perhaps its the fear that it may fill me up too much to enjoy dinner, perhaps it has to do with my disdain for eating alone and seeing as 5 lunches out of 7 are solo events for me this could very well explain why I consume such spartan midday meals. Saturday's lunch however showed me that the enjoyment of a meal is very much dependent on where you eat it and with whom and not soley the timing of it. Saturday showed me that lunch can be special outside of Christmas. And what a lunch it was....Paella...steaming hot, smoky, aromatic, mouth watering Paella, bursting with chicken, chorizo, prawns, mussels and garlic.....but what made this meal so special, besides the wonderful company I was in and the beautiful sunny afternoon that it was, and the delicious home made apple cider we were drinking with it.....was the imported Spanish smoked paprika throughout the Paella....it made the dish.....and after 3 helpings of it....I can say I am now hooked on spanish smoked paprika....and on long lazy Saturday lunches.

Thanks must go to my dear friend that welcomed me into her kitchen to help her prepare this fantastic meal, I will go forth in search of my own little tin of heavenly Spanish smoked paprika.......and may endeavour to host my own late lunch soon.

The cider that accompanied Saturday afternoon's lunch flowed into Saturday evening which flowed into the pub and in order to avoid competing with such a meal, Saturday night chose to stick with liquid derived indulgence. Oh the dangers of having your own home made alcohol supply in your garage....beautiful apple cider that goes down way too easily is so nice to come home to once the pub no longer provides satisfaction.

Sunday. mmmmm.....I am cranky with Sunday. Sunday gave me a hangover, a $179 parking ticket and an afternoon of hangover binge eating.....blame it on Sunday. Thankfully a sausage roll and sauce was the limit of my 'bad' food for the day, the rest was more just an overconsumption of all that was on offer at the house of my dinner date. For some reason, when I am hungover the little wire that sends the 'I'm full now' message from the stomach to the brain seems to malfunction, causing me to eat well beyond any rational limit. Sunday dinner was absolutely delicious, hungover or not I think I wouldn't be able to resist what was served.....roasted pumpkin soup, followed by Thai green chicken curry pot pies, finished with chocolate brownies served with home made vanilla ice cream.

So there I was on Monday morning making irrational promises such as giving up the demon drink for all eternity and vowing to never eat so much in one weekend again.....by Tuesday I even started walking to work again...

And here I am on Thursday evening, daydreaming about a glass of our new sparkling cider.....which I must add I declined when it was first uncorked last night......but if I can resist the temptation, knowing that it is in our fridge crying out to be tasted then damn it, I think by tomorrow night such restraint deserves a drink.......