Provender

There was a fishman's van that came around the village every week selling everything from prawns to kippers. We bought kippers for our breakfast and Joan brought us prawns, which I had never cooked - in fact had never seen before. But I figured they'd be the same as shrimp so shouldn't be a problem.

Our new freezer was delivered and Wilf said he was going to order half a deer and would we like to do that too. It seemed really strange to be able to buy venison that way. In the states Jack would go hunting and we'd have venison that he'd shot and we'd butchered ourselves. Here the meat does not belong to the hunter, who has to pay for the priviledge of shooting a deer - so it can be butchered and sold. We ordered half a deer. We also ordered half a pig and half a lamb from the butcher in Lochinver - we figured that these, along with fish we'd caught, would do us for the winter.

I had little experience in cooking fish and seafood so I bought a fish cookbook at Inverkirkaig and found another book that looked really good and helpful - the first volume of Delia Smith's Cookery Course. Armed with these books I was now ready to produce fine cuisine - or so I thought.