Falling Back on an Olive!

olive pâté and heat-liquified olive oil

One of the disadvantages of being snowed in at the castle, as at present, is being unable to shop for food. Unfortunately, just before being snowed in I was away for 2 weeks on festive season jaunts (Norfolk and Orkney), so I deliberately did not shop for food for a considerable time beforehand and indeed actively munched-down my supplies so there would be nothing left to go off over the Christmas period.

I wouldn't say I have no food, but increasingly all I have left are the weird and wonderful things that one has in one's store cupboard but never uses. I ran out of butter for my morning toast - disaster! A day or so of dry toast, made me improvise. I had an un-opened jar of black olive pâté - how would that substitute?

The first mouthful was horrible, the pâté has a strong bitter olive taste, and I fell into despair. However, I now love it! The salty quality makes its a little like Marmite. It's obviously much more expensive than butter, but it would be particularly great on canapés where you need a strong flavour hit as the item itself is small. 

I normally make scone-based pizzas for food emergencies, but in the absence of butter, I found some frozen puff pastry in the freezer which can double as a pizza base.

Unfortunately, due to the cold the olive oil for frying the onions had solidified in its bottle, and I could not get it out. I normally immerse the bottle of olive oil in hot water, but all the taps in the kitchen were frozen so there was no water available. Aha, I will pop the bottle of olive oil in the oven very briefly. It was very brief, but as you can see the bottle still melted.

Anyhow, it is somewhat ironic that being snowed-in in the north of Europe has forced me to adopt a Mediterranean diet. :-) It is such a relief to know that one can fall back on an olive.

It snowed heavily all morning today, so it was the peak snow accumulation for the season so far. However, this afternon the snow turned to rain. It becomes cold again around Thursday, so there will be a race between a complete thaw and the currently slushy snow freezing over. I am sure you know which I would prefer.

In the meanwhile, Red Cross parachute drops of bread, butter, olive oil, and instant coffee would be much appreciated.

One of the advantages of being snowed in at the castle is the opportunity for tobogganing, and I rushed out this morning to sledge down the snowed-over  drive. A pair of red shell sledges have been around since last winter, behind the bins, left by some guests. However, during my absence over the Christmas holiday, they have disappeared. These are the first sledges I have ever owned, and at the very moment they should have come into their own, they have gone missing.