We also have a hunk of lamb in the freezer for Easter. A boned leg, if I recall correctly, almost the last of the whole lamb we bought from our favourite farmer last fall. We should be eating goose with Himself's brother and wife, but now obviously not. The goose is also sitting in the freezer, larger than life and twice as frosty.

The silver lining in this cloud is that, by the time we can invite someone over to help us eat that damnable goose, summer will have arrived and I will be able to cook it outside, thus not filling the house with the smoke that seems to be the inevitable result of roasting waterfowl in a convection oven. The last time I cooked a duck, I thought we would be feeding the fire brigade, too.

The current soup in the fridge is bean-and-kale minestrone, a recipe that always makes about a gallon. It freezes well, fortunately but, unfortunately, the kale always turns an unattractive olive-drab colour, exactly the same shade as the combat uniforms we wore back in the Cold War. I close my eyes and eat it anyhow; the flavour and nutritional value are not affected.