mattresses and pie

I decided to buy a mattress. After 2 and a half years, my poor old sofa bed has quite reasonably become uncomfortable in the middle, meaning I have to choose one side or the other upon which to sleep. A simple enough decision if made while awake, but not so much when dormant. Fortunately, Jacques and Sophie volunteered to drive me to a shop to take delivery of said new mattress, so last Thursday it was off to the shops, with the additional participant being the now-5-month-old Juliette.

The chap in the store quite happily assured us that the mattresses were all on site, rather than over at the depot, which was nice to know. Of course, this was true right up until the point where I said, "I want that one!", at which point he grimaced and admitted that said model was not, in fact, available until next week. At which point I cried, got him to order it in, and went home to make pie.

Goat's cheese pie. Ring any bells? Inspired by Chris & Anjum, I perhaps foolishly offered to J&S to make them the guinea pigs in my first attempt at this famous dish. Its actually pretty simple: chopped onion, halved cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, basil (I didn't have time to buy any fresh stuff, so I just used dried), lots of chèvre (for the non-francophones, that's pretty much goat's cheese), and pesto.

I have to boast that all this went down in the context of a somewhat larger and more impressive culinary exhibition. We started with melon with italian ham and port. The goat's cheese pie, runny despite my having avoided real tomatoes, followed, accompanied by a rocket and beaufort (smelly french cheese) salad. We finished off with a raspberry charlotte cake (bought, it must be admitted) with ice cream. I offered coffee, but forgot to dose the calvados, much to my shame upon realising as much. The only hitch was that Juliette got pretty tired and, as is the wont of her kind, made noises I would not have credited to an instrument of her size had I not heard them with my own bones. Nonetheless, as my most ambitious invite-around thus far, I would call the whole shebang a success.