Chicken, peas, potatoes

Eastside Road, July 6, 2010—

A PERFECT SUPPER, one of the Hundred Plates. A perfect light summer supper. Immenesely more perfect when someone else has done the work, and probably supernal when eaten after a week in hospital — which is why you haven't seen me here recently.

Not that I might not write about the hospital food one of these days: but if I do, it'll be over there at The Eastside Road: it won't be an account of normal daily eating, but a disquisition on the nature of mass feeding at even a rather enlightened institution.

I know, the photo could be better; I'm too shaky for this new iPhone software. But the plate looks beautiful to me. A couple of chef friends were up to celebrate my preliminary release two days ago and roasted this delicious little bird with herbs from the garden — by the time it was done I was back in hospital, so I don't know what they did. The potatoes taste of olive oil and salt and garlic, commodities apparently unknown at the health mill, and the peas of marjoram; all is well with the world. Well, not quite all:

Pomegranate juice