One lonely papadum, brave chickpea flour

On Monday morning I nibbled on a leftover papadum and thought happy thoughts about the weekend social extravaganza conceived by mastermind friends, wherein we went on a splendid outing in the lounge room. We ate a sensational feast of home-made Indian food: you should have seen the table. I love menus (back in the day I read recipe books like novels), so I will tell you that we ate dry lamb curry, chicken saag, raita, naan, papadums, tomato, onion and coriander relish, and I have to make particular mention of the fried aubergine coated in turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt. It was textural perfection - I have never eaten aubergine so sublimely fluffy. We looked at travel photos, wore surprisingly comfortable beaded finery, played an accompanying soundtrack, and the others almost danced but the boss dancer ended up being too tired to lead the troupe. He did a few desultory hip and shoulder wiggles and then lay on my daybed. After all that, I’m not lonely, but the remaining papadum was, so I ate it. Dipped in raita and delicious.

Here’s to good people and good food. And if you’ll excuse me and my wrinkly table-cloth, I must go back to being pole-axed.