A CLASSIC SALAD

This is one of my favourites - made it to take to a friend and didn't bother to look for a recipe.

PEAR AND GORGONZOLA SALAD:

• Head of Romaine lettuce
• 2 pears - just ripe! Slice fairly thin, lengthways 
• about 3 ozs mountain gorgonzola cheese
• half cup walnuts - lightly toasted
• balsamic vinaigrette - with a little honey added

This salad need to be presented on a platter or shallow dish.  Toss the lettuce in some of the dressing and arrange as the base. Top with the pears, drizzle more dressing onto them.  The cheese is too creamy to crumble, you will need to dice or just break apart with your fingers and scatter evenly over the salad, the do the same with the nuts. Enjoy!

DESSERT FOR ELIZABETH

Elizabeth is visiting from Argentina for a week. Julia hosted a dinner, mostly girls but of course Alan was invited! Such a fun evening, the Wilton crowd with some international friends who Elizabeth added into the mix. She is a great collector of interesting people! Julia did a delicious Fish pie and I did a Normandy Apple tart for dessert. This is something I have been cooking for years. The recipe comes from the Observer, a Sunday newspaper in London. There was a section every week to collect - we are talking late 1970s here! I usually do this with pears, it is delicious and it looks so wonderful. However, Joseph and I had been apple picking a few weeks ago, I had a fridge full of apples so had to do the traditional way this time! I actually was not that happy with it - the apples were a bit big so the 'spokes' were not that even but it did taste pretty good - really! I wish the pictures were better but I was distracted...... I really think this is easier to do than it looks and it gets rave reviews, go on, try it!