Supper # 37 - Wadebridge, Cornwall (again)

I returned to Wadebridge and the open arms of Rose & Ben. I was spaced out after a day of 5am champagne drinking, sunrise paddling, very choppy non-mackerel fishing, almost hurling, gritty fish & chips eating, convulsed seagull watching and then a fill-up of Jimmy's tank - always alarming of late. I had called in en route to visit some more old Sixties muckers of my mum's which was, as we like to say in our family, very emotional. By the time I got back to the fold it felt like coming home.

There was Ben rotating clay dishes and shredding coconut, popping corks and sharpening knives. We gathered round the kitchen table once more and carried on gas-bagging as if it had been months. What is it about some people where just being around them causes thoughts to domino through your brain so? Like no effort at all is required.

I was desperate to watch the football. So was Ben. Rose had to make do with Scrabulous as she can't stand it. Italy-Spain - what a decision. We always back Italy in our family out of respect for the old days up the mountain in Montelaterone, but Spain just threw down so much more convincingly. As Italy stood strong and sturdy but with little fire Spain raged around the pitch, powerful and hot...especially that guapo, Casillas. MMmmmm!

Anyway, back to the grub. A slavish day in the pan had reduced cubes of spiced lamb down to yielding, easy-going little nuggets; all dark in colour and deep of flavour. Calcutta chickpeas with coconut shavings and comforting daal were cleaned and cooled by a cucumber raita. Ben had invented a flatbread which came out of the oven a bit crispier than he'd hoped - didn't bother me, I just loaded it up with all the goodness of the rest of the plate and crunched right through that sucker.

Lager, curry, football, la-la-la-la! and followed by a sleep that threatened never to end...

Padstow turns it on

Crawling out of bed in the dark reminds me of going to catch a flight. It's exciting and I fairly bounced up and at 'em when Adrian woke me. No tea for this chick - get me to the beach and that chilled champagne! We drove quickly along the lanes, trying to make it to St George's Well before 5.08am and the shard of dawn that would surely greet us...or would it be horizontal rain? The dingy morning brooded overhead, giving little away. I grabbed my shades from my bag just in case and down we marched to join the party, headed up by David of Bin Two; wine shop par excellence of Padstow.

Coolboxes bulged with iced champers, paper bags brimmed with boxes of duck eggs, bacon was being parted and placed on the grill and activity was all very hive like. I met all sorts of fun individuals - Padstow stalwarts imparting tails of rollicking good parties and magical sounding houses. I sipped on. Sometimes allowing a spot of Tropicana to enter my glass but generally going a pelo. We ate strawberries and cream, barbecued bread, played with the dogs, louched about, rain came in fits but by 7 the sun charged through the clouds and gave us a heck of a gorgeous day.

Later we went mackerel fishing (organised by super host Adrian). I declined motion-sickness pills on the grounds that I should have better sea legs than anyone, given my time on yachts. After an hour or so I was ready to hurl great Bucks-fizzy chunks and pined for the tourist thronged streets of Padstow. We returned, fish-less and opted for Rick Stein's Fish & Chips instead. I went for grilled mackerel with a battered oyster chaser. Delish. Even though seconds before my mouth made contact with it there was a hug gust of wind that sprinkled dock grit on all the food in our pavement picnic. It didn't effect my enjoyment - might even have given the whole thing a touch more authenticity.

We finished up and set off to leave, but not before witnessing one of the most revolting things I've ever forced myself to absorb. This huge great seagull came sweeping past the crowds, over the dock and nose-dived perilously close to me. He had his eyes on half a giant sausage roll abandoned by one of the kids. Off he went with his beak wrapped round the bounty. All his crew came squawking over, desperate for a bit of twos-up. No way yer bastards, he seemed to say as he threw his head back and swallowed the thing whole. He stood there for a few moments, his white neck bulging with this meaty lump. It stuck out like a goitre; a great writhing, living goitre that he gurgitated down until it was gone from sight; no doubt landing amongst all manner of other horrors in the pit of his trash-compacting gut. Gross.

Supper # 36 - Margots, Padstow, Cornwall

I sidled over to Padstow the next day. Rain loomed in the clouds and hibernation winked at me. My Padstonian host, Adrian, of Margots had gone to so much effort for my visit, including a carpark pitch at the austere looking Metropole Hotel, but when the weather's crap there is so little point in getting all set up and then WAITING. I actually don't mind it sometimes - there I am in Jimmy's cosy interior, surrounded by neon and flashing lights and I have to stay put, which means I can get down to admin, accounts and other such sufferers of aside pushing.

When I arrived it looked bleak. Adrian turned up with his family and seemed disappointed at my not being there earlier. I tried to explain the hopelessness of the situation and think an ice cream thrust gently towards him may have atoned things slightly.

We go our separate ways - him to prep the evening at the restaurant and me to mooch about town. 'Padstein' they call it and it's not hard to see why. The man is everywhere - under every (Pet)roc, up every street, down on the seafront - the local hero lofted high over this town, besieged by people wanting a piece of the fish pie. I pop into the Rick Stein deli and am aghast at what I discover. Charging £5.10 for a box of cereal that normally costs £2.99 in a supermarket is just not cricket. I turn on my heel and head of, horrified.

THE SET UP: Adrian has us booked in for a late table at the bistro. It will be only the fourth time in twelve years that he's sat down at the end of the night and eaten dinner here. He's Welsh via Northants and a 'non-foodie' - as he tells me, "I do what I do and I do it well". No funny business just good old fashioned reliable favourites. So I find goats cheese crostini, mushroom and chorizo risotto, scallops with bacon - and a small selection of other well chosen dishes. The place is booked up for months in advance and there is outcry should Adrian ever try to remove any of the Margots staples.

WHO CAME: Adrian and me.

WHAT WE ATE: We both go for the scallops with crispy bacon lardons, asparagus and caperberries. The scallops are juicy, firm little sea pillows. The serving is large. By the time my main of Bream turns up I see that trouble may be afoot and take an extra large swig of the Spy Valley sauvignon to help with the process. The Bream arrives atop a 'crab butter' - a yellow, chive studded sauce full of white crab meat. This is also huge and by the time I've put it away I'm beginning to feel a bit Creosote-esque.

DINER TABLE TOPICS: Adrian's mad, bad and dangerous past. Food. But Adrian doesn't want to talk about food - he wants to get down to more personal mechanics so I tell him about my past. I realise once again that I much prefer asking the questions. Whether this is a control thing or a privacy thing I'm not sure. We drink on; me the wine, him the Cornish bottled water. I hear about the horrors of the second-homers round here and how most locals and newcomers are priced out of the market. Twenty clothes shops in Padstow and nowhere to pick up your kids' school uniform. No butcher, no greengrocer, no video shop. It would drive me loopy. Adrian is good company and it's nice to see the relaxed interplay between him and his staff.

THE PUD: Much as I'm always tempted by a sticky toffee pudding, my devilish girth dictates a lighter option: saffron jelly with a poached saffron pear and clotted cream. It turns up cheery and glistening; the sunniest of sights for the summer solstice.

MY BED FOR THE NIGHT: So we lock up the restaurant, clamber the hill to the car and speed over to Adrian's house. His daughter, Becky, has given up her bed for the night...or should that be half the night? We're expected back in Padstow for sunrise and a beach party to celebrate the midsummer. Alarm set for 4.30am.

Supper # 35 - Wadebridge, Cornwall

THE SET UP: Rose and Ben are old friends of my mum's from the blessed Sixties. Whenever I see them I feel a magic transportation back to this hallowed time. They were at the epicentre of it - hanging out with all sorts of groovers and shakers and having so much fun. From London they moved to Scotland, then down to Somerset and now to Cornwall where they groove and shake in a much more low key fashion.

When I get there it is drizzling. Has been drizzling all day so that their garden heaves gently with the gradual weight of a million tiny raindrops. Ben ushers me in to the cosy stone cocoon of their kitchen and I am given a large glass of wine immediately. Rose is delighted and geed up, all ready to have a good old gas and hunker in for the evening. We stand round in the kitchen as Ben prepares beautiful little packages of prawn paste with perfect, rolled flat slices of bread and miniature omelettes. In they go to the awaiting wok, roiling and moiling with hot oil.

Ben used to play the guitar. Used to chase musicians all over - to New York to see Taj Mahal, down to Memphis, N'Awlins, Nashville - and Bob Dylan concerts chart decades. Now his hands work better with food and his creations rock the taste buds just like his slide guitar filled up your soul. Rose is mad keen on Scrabulous and gets incensed when a far away college kid accuses her of cheating. "I can't help responding though", she says "it's silly, I know but it really maddens me".

I set to work on a hot chocolate rum souffle and more wine gets devoured. I already feel like I don't much want to leave.

WHO CAME: Rose, Ben and me.

WHAT WE ATE: Deep fried prawn rolls with a tangy cucumber relish and hot, hot rice wine dip. Then we have a real 'fusion' number: Vietnamese spatch-cocked quails glazed with a deep, sticky hot sauce, wok-cooked pak choi and minted boiled potatoes just dug up from the garden. We grab those toothsome birds with both hands and fill our faces with flavour that punches like it means it. I go in for more, Rose elects more wine instead.

DINNER TABLE TOPICS: We talk about my mum, Rose, Suzanne and Vicki; four London girls drawn together at school in 1964. Each had a different kind of family - tricky Jewish dad, predatory youthful mum, strict Catholic housekeeper, but Rose's house was a safe haven for them all - especially on that fateful week when each of them was expelled on a different day, ending with Friday when there was no one left in their gang to 'exclude'. And about Perthshire in 1981 when they moved up there: nothing doing for dinner except mince and tatties - even onion and garlic were hard to obtain. RnB would send for lentils, tahini, pasta, chilli and try and cobble together food with some flavour.

THE PUD: The hot chocolate souffle comes out of the oven looking swell. All puffed up with somewhere to go. We take it to its fate at the centre of the table and plunge in, pulling out a quivering, spoonful of heavenly warmth. On top we pour a hot chocolate sauce and sit there eating it in moaning delight. The dessert wine Ben pulls out seems so right.

We stay up talking and talking. I drill Ben for information on his really fruity sounding family history - of Cecil Beaton' first gig as photographer at his parents' wedding, his racy grandmother, Frieda, who would receive four letters a night from Edward VIII - blathering, soppy, childish letters - at the height of their relationship. He tells me not to repeat most of what he tells me, I'm gutted because it's fascinating.

MY BED FOR THE NIGHT: I ascend the old wooden stairs with a large glass of water and fall asleep watched over by Ben's mother in her unbelievable wedding dress.