Christine Currie

We were out in the New Forest yesterday to celebrate me getting old with a few friends. I’d been planning a run from Lyndhurst for months so was really cross when I went down with a sore throat and temperature on the Friday night. It still hadn’t shifted by the morning so I was relegated to the walking party, leaving all the fit people to run.

After a good hour’s exercise we headed to La Pergola for lunch. The service was good and the two babies who were there were tolerated very well (thankfully both behaved themselves impeccably, which probably helped!). Choosing chicken in a creamy sauce was stupid as I don’t like creamy sauces but the enormous slice of cheesecake was delicious, although even I was struggling towards the end of it.

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I stumbled across the UK mushroom growers site the other day and they have some very attractive recipes on offer. We tried the creamy quinoa mushroom risotto, partly as I’ve been wanting to try out quinoa since its recent coronation as a superfood, and partly because I like mushrooms. It was easy to cook and tasted great, even without the dried mushrooms. I’m not sure whether the quinoa was an improvement on risotto rice, but it made a change and is apparently very good for you.