The adventures of Miss Despina

We had a rather impromptu dinner party last night, involving 3 couples, a lot of beer, a lot of wine, and the most enormous paella in the world! Be warned, I am going to go into lots of detail here - this is food porn of the raciest variety.
Unlike the all-day jobs when I hosted dinner parties with my mother, I spent most of yesterday handing in my notice at superdrug (but I couldn’t tell my amazing boss Cathy what the letter was about otherwise I would have cried) and going shopping for sexy new clothes. (By the way ladies, don’t shun New Look for jeans. I dislike a lot of the stuff in there - my look is rather distinctive, I’d describe it at best as a funky homage to Audrey Hepburn - but they have a great choice of jeans for about £12 a pop, and they fit girls with short legs and big bottoms!)

3pm: Meet J at the wonderful Bury market, buy loads of meat, seafood and vegetables, and wine and beer on the way home.
4.30: We get home. The guests are due at 7.
4.32: J takes three bags of bottles to be recycled.
4:33: I set about cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, and am making the pastry for tarte tatin when I realise I don’t have a flan dish.
5.00: Dispach J off on a quest to find me one.
5.30. J returns with a flan dish.
5.31 - 6: J clears up the lounge and the kitchen.
6 - 6.30: J makes Italian bean salad. It smells orgasmic. I roll out my pastry and bake it, and caramelise my apples. The clock is ticking.
6.31: We freak out. We cuddle. All is well.
6.32: I ring up more friends and invite them round - there is so much food.
6.33: J goes to the corner shop in the middle of the road to buy more wine and beer.
6.35: J returns with 10 cans of Polish beer and finally, begins to make Paella.
7.00: Elvira and Mark arrive. At least we have a starter and a dessert.
7.05: We make them help us with chopping etc. Or else they get no food.
7.15: The paella begins to look like a paella.
7.30: Katerina and Adam arrive. I’ve not seen her for ages, it’s so lovely to see them.
8: Finally, we sit down to eat.

And it is beautiful! I should have taken photos but I was having such a great time I just forgot - and also some people think my food photographing habit is odd.

Starter
In Budapest we first encountered the loveliness of shmaltz (pork fat) on bread. We were so happy to find some in the wonderful Katsouris’ delicatessen in Bury - an amazing deli that has to be seen to be believed, so photos coming soon. We spent nearly £20 in there yesterday, on fresh bread, balsamic vinegar, squid, octopus, and various other lovely things. So we had bread and shmaltz with a salad that consisted of green beans, red onion, red pepper, asparagus and fresh mint, with a gorgeous dressing. And octopus.