We are now at the time of year when I’m desperate for spring veg but Ontario is still too cold to produce any. The supermarkets have a few bunches of Mexican asparagus, but it’s poor stuff that costs the earth. Basil is strikingly absent, thanks to the virus. Everything in the veg bins looks as if it has been there since Ash Wednesday.

I made a green version of pasta puttanesca the other day, with hot-house spinach wilted in the anchovy-garlic-capers-olive base of the sauce. The only olives in the house were black so it did not look quite as elegant as I hoped it would, but it tasted great so I closed my eyes. Himself inhaled a great heap of the stuff. A success.

Tonight it’s magret de canard from the freezer, with duck bought from our favourite farmer at the last market before the lock-down. I might have to improvise an orange sauce from marmalade. I’m told worse things happen at sea.