Ruby Wedding #3 - Family, Friends and Food
It's what we have done for years. Mrs Cheoff was always a terrific cook with the ability to plan, prepare and present great food to a big gathering of people. She has created lovely menus for oodles of special occasions... birthdays, anniversaries and celebrations of all sorts of success and achievement. Sometimes the only excuse was to entertain and please. A fine excuse if you ask me.
Eventually, I wasn't afraid to interfere and contribute.
With our combined love of cooking and the eagerness to share our results it seemed perfectly natural to offer a spot of afternoon delight to treasured family and friends as part of our Ruby Wedding celebrations. We managed to arrange this on the day of our anniversary. A buffet lunch.
After reviewing pictures of the main and dessert tables it behoves me to resort to uncustomary honesty. Both those tables are heaving under the strain of far more of my wife’s work than mine.
Looking at much of cheoff.com will give you a false impression. Yes, I do often spend time with more demanding recipes but the savoury and sweet spreads shown here represent the bedrock of what has come out of our kitchen for decades.
From this point on, you are gathered here today to view most of the food items on offer. Links are there for recipes where available. Salads were also homemade and the only one shop-bought ready-made was pork pies from our local Brown’s Family Butchers.
Exceptional gammon with cider and cinnamon
Shooter’s Roll Our trusty - regularly tried and trusted - M&S cookbook recipe. Like a vulgar sausage roll. One which demands that you embrace any vulgarity after the very first bite!
We are asked for the recipe constantly. Here you go…
Smoked Salmon and Dill Quiche/Tart/Thing Not - by a long shot - the last Delia recipe you will find here!
Coronation Chicken No idea (recollection of) which recipe we used. Perhaps something close to the ‘original’. You surely have your own favourite. It’s been tweaked for decades!
Black Forest Pavlova Three words which say, “EAT ME!”
Terrine of Summer Fruits From ‘Delia Smith’s Summer Collection’ Made by us since 1993 when the book of the TV series first appeared - a book which was reprinted twelve times in that year!
Deep Lemon Tart With cream to counteract that awfully sharp lemon attack! #winkemoji
Wimbledon Cheesecake This was a baked variety which followed swiftly on from the second time Andy Murray had lifted ‘The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Championship of the World’ trophy ten days before. Sorbet, ice cream and meringues* were all there if needed to help this go down the better. Ooh, oooh, I made two out of three of those!
*’Merigues’ according to our typo label!
Just ‘cake’ to finish.
My rich fruit cake richly decorated by Mrs Cheoff. Mrs Cheoff’s sponge cake with a restrained seasonal ‘coronet’.
Rather like the aftermath of Christmas cooking, our anniversary efforts for family and friends left us with extras which lasted well beyond the day itself.
Other options - outside caterers, hospitality venues and the like - were available. We chose the cheaper and totally daft alternative. Without any regrets. All the work put in had left us a little weary but, rather like the effort put into our forty (and a bit) year relationship, a tiredness overlaid with huge satisfaction and happiness. With hardly any regrets!
-xx-
I'll drift off now into a reverie filled with nostalgia. I prefaced a short speech to our assembled guests by accessing and playing a recording of this piece of music. It's the tune to which Jan entered the church on our wedding day...
“Phwoooar!” he ejaculated.
(I do hope readers will recognise my old-fashioned turn of phrase. I remain a devotee of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Doctor Watson. And a permanently big fan of Mrs. G!)
