The Boys in Blue and me in tears

Have just watched last night's MasterChef and am mopping up tears...So apologies in advance for bad syntax.

Our four hardy cooks made my little teatime efforts look like something a kid might rustle up. Their food for the the Duchess was breathtaking but it was their cream tea and sandwiches for retired fighter pilots and colleagues from World War Two at R.A.F. Northolt, which brought this bungalow down.

Every china cake stand filled with delicacies like coffee and walnut sponge cake, fruit tartlets, eccles cakes and cream and jam scones made me break into wartime song, the savouries were nice too...smoked salmon sandwiches, British beef sandwiches and egg and watercress, all so wonderfully light I could barely hold back claps of admiration. So I didn't. I clapped as the heavily medalled octogenarian men tucked in, feasting on all kinds of delicious stuff, everything went down a treat.

And afterwards, when the contestants met the Heroes and Heroines they looked genuinely in awe. I liked that.
Gentle aching claps from the former Fighters and Plotters must have been the best sound any of the amateur chefs have heard.
And as Dame Vera sang you know what to the closing pic of four disparate chefs walking into the sunset, I broke down.

It made me realize that cooking food whether a simple teatime treat or a three course late night special both can be the most wonderful enriching thing anyone can do.
Therfore this weekend I will put my foot down and soar...................

Also....
Michel Roux Snr made a guest appearance showing how a Croquembouche is made...So Our cooks had to make one too. All were terrified but needn't had worried because all their bouches were fine. (Sara's had a Leaning Pisa feel to it but she's Italian so)
I'll be fiddling with an icing bag this weekend too when I make some Chocolate Eclairs filled with cream. Choux pastry is fiddly but it is the lightest most unctious of all the pastries so well worth the trauma!

Today I'm making meatballs followed by cherry fairy cakes and cream...wonder if the boys in blue would like some.

Now I must fly.................


:)