Thursday 23 July 2009

My birthday. 68 today. 120 months left? Anyway, a thoroughly gastronomic day, with lunch at Quayle's (grilled garlic prawns and a glass of rosé) and dinner at home (fresh crab, very good ribeye steak from Jessye Smith, cheeses and apricots from Quayle's). Plus a bottle of red wine.

Stars of the evening? The wine (a 1998 from Margaux: Château Desmirail). And the Lincolnshire "poacher" cheese. Plus, of course, the final Nespresso. I think in my next life Ill live in a humble house, buy one CD a year, and spend my money on buying great wines early. I can't remember where the 1998 Margaux came from, but I think it was a present in Nîmes during the period 2001-3. It was quite superb and constituted the ideal birthday wine.

After dinner music was provided by Herr Artur Schnabel playing two more Beethoven sonatas. The Beethoven piano sonatas are welcome new food; all my life I have had a fleeting acquaintance with them all, but in only three cases -- Moonlight, Appassionata and Op 111 -- are they over-familiar.

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