(A few nights ago from the Mill Arms)
I am just indulging in a dessert at the Mill Arms, for research purposes. The chef here is what one might call a 'rough diamond'. At least that is how he appears to me when he emerges from the kitchens at 9.30 on the dot. It wouldn't do to get your order in late, he would have no mercy. He seems to be missing a front tooth. He installs himself in the public bar and rolls a fag, having ordered a bitter. He is reading a book. A literate rough neck, it appears.
I have been resisting the 'pecan and bourbon pie with black currant sorbet' for the last three weeks, not understanding what black currant could possibly have to do with pecan pie. Tonight I stepped out into the unknown, and , baby, the rough neck is a culinary poet!
It came, as the desserts usually do here, on a rather poncy sort of big square glass plate, with a squiggle of chocolate across it. So far so good, but a bit predictable.
But as an additional decoration there was a strawberry, quartered but not cut through, in the centre of which reclined, shameless like an odalisque, - a raspberry.
But the pie! Oh my oh my! The pie!
I wonder if the rough neck wants to do some cooking in Africa?
(Sadly, I devoured the pie described above without immortalizing it in a picture. Have had 3 more since, and the strawberry never came back....)