For those of you who read my little article last month, I am pleased to say that my economic sanctions are still in place and the practice of cooking toast on the Aga has been perfected….no more noisy smoke alarms going off every morning!
Moving forward with new “lockdown” initiatives at Yellingham Farm, the thought of “job share”, now so prominent in many businesses, sprung quickly to mind. The farmhouse is a fair size to clean and even without B and B guests, the dust still arrives, muddy boots still appear, cobwebs decorate every room, that’s without the general mess created by dogs, cats and humans (only one other human in 
residence…..Edward). I am quite happy to clean but took the opportunity to prepare a cleaning schedule for the 2 of us to share.
I thought I would take the lion’s share and allocate just one room to Edward to start with and see whether my exacting standards could be achieved – the obvious room was the kitchen, seeing as Edward does most of the cooking given his lifelong career as a chef. Methods, frequencies and cleaning products to use were all specified and clearly documented. Absolute waste of time.
Cleaning was spasmodic, flippant and carried out whilst watching the History channel on the television. Edward said the television was to give him motivation and education all in one go – sounds very reasonable but the cleaning standards achieved only motivated me to consider stopping the TV licence! So, it’s back to the drawing board with the allocation of cleaning tasks.
On a brighter note, we are managing to try some new dishes, as we attempt to reach
the dark depths of our freezers. It’s surprising what you find unlabelled and unrecognisable until it’s defrosted and then sometimes you do consider whether the best option would be to cook it for the dogs!
One particular new dish which we tried recently sounded so delicious – chicken wrapped in leeks, served with a beautiful sauce. I told Edward where to find the leeks in the garden and left the rest to 
him. Dinner arrived and looked delicious. The first bite told me otherwise. It was inedible. The leeks were so tough and hard. It was so disappointing. Further investigation revealed that Edward didn’t know the difference between leeks and garlic and had wrapped the chicken breasts in tough garlic leaves.
The conversation went something like this: “Don’t you know the difference between garlic and leeks after 40 years in the catering industry?”
“Yes……leeks are short have white bottoms and green tops, garlic is a small bulb 
– no green, no nothing – all our veg always came in totally prepared and ready to use – no mud on things like you produce”.
I bit my tongue, smiled and realised that my leeks and garlic are sown near each other and could be confused – easy mistake, but the dogs enjoyed the dish though.
Janet East
