Cooking for me

What a great day it's been.

For the second time in the short career of 42rvh, a renowned chef from London, staying here for the weekend, has ended up buying food in the fabulous market and cooking for me in my kitchen - it just doesn't get any better than helping a chef prepare dinner and then sitting down with him and his partner around my dining table, chatting and drinking for several hours on a very rainy and stormy day.

He cooked some asparagus with a classic French bearnaise sauce and then produced a wonderful beef casserole (daube de bouef) with herbed pureed potato. I chipped in with some fresh strawberries and whipped cream and meringue to finish it all off. Last night I cooked for them and my other guests who, sadly, left today before getting the chance to sample David's food.

The chef in question is David Eyre, who currently cooks at Eyre Brothers on Leonard St in Shoreditch in London - but is also famous for starting the gastropub revolution with his cooking at the Eagle on Farringdon Road. He's a top man, a great chef, no ego and a absolute pleasure to have stay and cook. In fact, I think I might start a 'which great chef hasn't cooked here?'competition - I think there is definitely an angle there somewhere - not that I'd want it to turn into some sort of reality TV hell - I couldn't think of anything worse.

What was so great was that we all agreed that sitting around the dining table on a rainy Sunday afternoon, eating and drinking and chatting, was the most lovely and convivial way to spend the day and none of us could think of anything else we would rather have been doing. Of course, they got to to retire to their room with a dvd and get their pyjamas and dressing gowns on at 8.00pm whilst I had to clear a kitchen - but then I've got no-one to watch a movie with and no TV to watch it on - poor me.

The other good thing about today was that I took three new bookings including selling out the Bastille Day weekend, which is just fantastic news - all week I have been getting slightly worried about where the next booking was going to come from and then I get three in the space of a few hours.

Gosh I'm tired though - I had to drag myself out of bed this morning to do breakfasts for my guests when all I wanted to do was sleep and sleep and sleep a bit more - even they admitted later that 9.00am was too early on a lazy Sunday morning in a provincial French town. Er - yeah, thanks and goodnight.