Ratatouille

Today I made ratatouille, the right way -- that is, the Beck, Bertholle and Child way. This takes ages; it's far more work than any other ratatouille recipe, but the result is well worth it. Accept no substitutes! We ate it with bread and a glass of chilled rosé, and pretended it was summer. I made loads -- it's even better the next day, and it freezes well too.

In other news, when I got up this morning, Mystère was hobbling about on three legs, and one of his front paws was twice the size of the other. So he was confined to the house for the day, spent the morning tightly curled up on the sofa, and got leftover roast chicken for lunch. That was worthwhile too though, because the swelling has gone down and he's hardly limping at all now. A trip to the vet avoided -- always a traumatic experience for all concerned. Who knows what happened; maybe he was stung.