FAIR’S FAIR: PORK & PEAR

I am definitely feeling my age.

Mainly, it’s the physical signs like being barely able to move the urinal cakes around the bowl by using only the force of my stream. I used to, in case anyone is interested, be a world champeen at this highly complex sport and could create all sorts of interesting shapes and patterns as water flowed from me as freely as glossalalia

Also, and there is a point to all of this, there is the fact that I have now attended well over fifty book trade fairs man and boy.

I am just back from yet another Frankfurt Book Fair and the sight of the same old faces trudging the aisles year after year looking increasingly decrepit makes an interesting marker of time. I felt like I needed a trainee sales person and a set of jump leads to get me started in the morning.

Anyway, I am home now, shattered in that “weary to my bones” kind of way that Willie Nelson sings about so well and determined never to eat another schnitzel again as long as I live. Well, at least, until next year.

However, I do need to reacquaint myself with my own kitchen so a bit of comfort food is in order. One of my favourite autumnal dishes.

A four chop loin of pork with sage, lemon and garlic stuffed under the skin, a spicy poached pear and some green beans. Suitably served by a glass or two of Petit Chablis, it may not make me feel any younger, but damn, it’s good to be home.

Oh, I had some black pudding too. But, I think that counts as an extra vegetable