Engorged

God I feel sick! I reckon I must have consumed my body weight in chocolate today! I'm actually feeling a little bit grumpy as a result; firstly because I've got heartburn and am sort of crashing after the mother of all sugar rushes, but also because I'm annoyed with myself for continually stuffing brown crap into my gob simply because it was sitting in front of me! I've no will power when it comes to food. None whatsoever.

Still, it's been a glorious day, which was spent with Nathan's family in North Wales. It's very rare for both halves of Nathan's lot to be together in the same space, with a full compliment of nieces, nephews and great nieces. It was also rather nice to spend a day with my in-laws now that they are officially just that. I am no longer David's sin-in-law, or Samantha's brother-out-law, which was what we cheekily used to refer to each other as. Now I'm officially a son/brother-in-law! And I have a husband! How odd is that?!

We went to Sainsbury's in Muswell Hill first thing this morning to buy Easter eggs for the family, and were horrified/ excited/ perplexed to find they well selling off great big Cadbury eggs for 70p. 70p!!! Christ knows how many we brought as a result, but we stuffed them all into a basket with forty cream eggs and a load of straw we'd convinced the man in the deli opposite to give us, and arrived at Sam's house feeling rather pleased with our gift.

...And it would have been a glorious gift had Sam herself, and then Nathan's mother not also arrived with stacks of eggs, cakes, biscuits and God knows what else. We could have opened our own chocolatier! It becomes rude, of course, not to sample every chocolate variant, and so it went throughout the day.

There was a glorious roast dinner for tea, which meant we could all re-gorge ourselves to assuage our savoury appetites. Isn't it astonishing how it's possible to stuff one's face with sweet stuff, and then be ready to start all over again with the savoury treats? The human body definitely has two distinct stomachs...

There is, of course, no nicer thing to do than sit down to a roast meal with loved ones. Aside from everything tasting delicious, there's something about the sharing buffet-like aspect of the meal which makes it rather unique. Vegetarians and non-veggies alike essentially just walk along plate loads of goodies choosing which bits of the meal they want to tuck into. The joy about a roast, ironically, is that, unless you become obsessed with cooking roast potatoes in duck fat, aside from whichever meat you opt for, the large majority of food can be enjoyed by both veggies and meat eaters.

For the record, roast potatoes aren't any tastier when cooked in duck fat. Duck fat just makes ones lips feel all greasy. A combination of butter, vegetable fat, par-boiling, and a good shake in the pan will crisp things up beautifully and avoid the sensation of having dowsed your lips in Vaseline mid-meal! Take it from a veggie. We know how to get the best out of potatoes!