今日は結構良いお天気でした、でも最高気温が2０度くらいで肌寒く、この先２週間も同じような気温（最低気温は１０度、１１度）もう夏は終わったような気がします。その前の１年とはすっかり変わって、今年の４月ごろからイギリスとは思えないくらいお天気が良い日が多く雨が少なかったですが、秋、冬はどうでしょう。いつもの通りなら、雨が多い暗い日々がほとんどなのであまり楽しみとは言えませんが、半年も良いお天気が続いたので文句は言えない。
It was quite sunny today but it felt very cool as the temperature was only up to 20C daytime. It looks like it’ll be that way for the next two weeks (the lowest at night is already as low as 10C or 11C), so I’m guessing the summer is gone. Contrary to the previous year, we’ve had so many sunny days since April this year, we haven’t had much rain, I wonder what the autumn and the winter is going to be like. If like usual it’ll be dark and wet so I cannot say I’m looking forward to the rest of the year but I feel we cannot complain after having had such a good spring and summer.
で、肌寒い１日でしたがまだ「寒い！」というほどではないので、食べられるうちにと冷製パスタを作りました。シェフをされていたお友達に口頭で教えていただいたのですが思い出せず再びメッセージでお聞きして、生姜（新生姜を冷凍していたのですが食べてみたら結構辛かったので、普通の生姜をすりました）、オクラ、胡瓜、山芋、オリーブオイル、とのこと。わたしはそこに少しプチトマトと夫が好きな紫蘇を足して、酸味が欲しかったのでレモン汁を加えてみました。本当はパスタのレシピでしたが十割蕎麦を使ってみました、さっぱりと美味しかったです。パスタの前に、昨日ファームショップで買ってみた無花果を生ハムと前菜にしました。無花果と生ハムの組み合わせは大好きで、日本に住んでいた時には（もう３０年も前）よく食べていましたが、イギリスの無花果はあまり美味しくなくて残念です。昨日買ったのはよく熟れていたので買ってみたのですが、柔らかさはあったもののやはりあまり甘くはなかったです。イギリスでは無花果は育つのですが、やはり太陽や気温が違うのでなかなか甘くならないんでしょうね。
So, it is feeling very cool and isn’t really the weather for cold pasta, but at least it hasn’t started to actually get ‘cold’ so I thought we’ll have cold pasta before it’s too cold. It’s a recipe I had from my chef friend, she told me the ingredients when she was here but I couldn’t remember all so I asked her on a message and she told me it was “new ginger, okra, cucumber, yamaimo & olive oil”. I have some new ginger in the freezer but when I tried a little it tasted quite hot and not so ‘new’ so I used ordinary ginger and grated it. I also added a few petit tomatoes and shiso leaves. I also wanted a little acidity so added a little lemon juice. This is supposed to be cold pasta but I decided to use Soba today – it was quite nice. Before the pasta we had a starter of figs with Parma Ham as we bought some figs at the farm shop we stopped by yesterday. I just love the combination of figs and Parma Ham and we used to have it often when we lived in Japan (30 years ago!) but the figs we can get here aren’t great. We bought some yesterday because they looked very ripe and they were, so they were soft but not as sweet as we had hoped. Figs do grow in England but they don’t seem to get sweet, I guess the sun isn’t strong enough or the temperature doesn’t go high enough.
