Carole Lombard’s Cherry Tart

“Don’t kiss and talk about it – men don’t.”

OK then Carole, I will keep schtumm. Carole looks so MODERN in this photo, so much so I am going to double check with the lovely Carla over at www.carolelombard.org just to make sure it is really her…

Back from a wonderful weekend camping in Epping Forest with my Crouch End family. On the way there, Paulette cracked me up by doing her “Cleopatra” line-dance routine in the car and losing the instructions to the campsite through the car window. We found it though, and fabulous it was too.

Those who weren’t born and bred Essex like Paulette and myself were astonished at the lawlessness of the campsite. Nothing new to us though, we Essex folk don’t like living by the rules. We two Essex girls weren’t surprised at all at the amount of axes lying around the place next to the fire pits and the number of fireworks going off at all hours.

I didn’t mention the delicious cherry pie that Paulette made for the book group in the previous post. As the original 1950s housewife she is queen of baking and I loved her variation on the theme – using cherries soaked in kirsch. She was a little alarmed at the amount of sugar in the recipe and yes, it was very sweet but as Jane said, “Sweet, schmeet”, we all loved it.

Today Shirley told me that I was her favourite grown up in the whole wide world, which after the week I’ve had has done my self-esteem the world of good. I even forgave her for attempting to curl my hair and getting it in such a tangle that Paulette had to use scissors to remove the hairbrush.