Early on in the week we made Harira for supper – the Moroccan thick soup with chickpeas, lentils, rice, tomatoes, garlic and ginger. It didn’t come out quite the way neither the recipe nor we intended, so we added loads of leftover roast guinea fowl from the previous evening to it and opened a bottle of Pinot Noir hoping it would make things better. The wine came from an outfit called Bodega Chacra in Argentina and is called Barda. I bought a case after reading a rather enthusiastic review by a celebrated female Master of Wine. It is quite light and rather one dimensional and slightly chilled, would make a good summer sipping wine rather than a partner for robust food. Sadly, the wine didn’t make things any better but we managed to finish most of it in one sitting leaving only a bit for sauce the next day.
The 157th Great Yorkshire Show – the annual farming extravaganza, started in Harrogate this week. There was organised chaos in the south side of town, where I live, for three days. The crowds, the Royals, congestion and noise an inconvenience the locals have to put up with every year.