Leg of Pork with Apple, Sage, and Onion Stuffing

Saturday 8 September

Generally we try to eat lightly at midday, not just in order to concentrate on dinner, but also because we don't want to end up as overweight, groaning (and impoverished) walruses. But today we went to see the Wallace Collection, and their restaurant in the central courtyard looked so good, with nice plump red cushions on the chairs, that we couldn't pass it up. And we were right: the crisped fillet of seabass with asparagus reposed happily on a bed of spicy persillade, and that on top of "beefheart" tomatoes; and there was a savory stew of goat with coco beans (no, not chocolate - big meaty beige beans, as in "Giant white coco beans" at http://www.innvista.com/health/foods/vegetables/vbeans.htm), also featuring lots of fresh thyme and tiny scallions.

Dinner was merely prepared by humble us, but we aimed at something similarly artistic. We had obtained a huge deboned Dutch pork leg at Sainsbury's, but were suspicious of the "crackling" on it, which looked like epidermis and was uncuttable with any knife in the house. So we cut it off, and there was plenty of fat underneath to keep the roast moist. Since it was now unrolled, we sautéed a chopped apple, half an onion, and sage leaves, spread it inside the boned leg, and re-rolled and tied it up. A brief spell under gas mark 7 brown it, then we put it down to 5 to roast for an hour and a half. The rolled, stuffed pork leg was accompanied by another sauté of sliced apples and onions with more sage, and though it hadn't taken as much preparation as lunch at the Wallace collection, it tasted equally good.

Afterwards, all four of us watched the last night of the Proms and ate some beautiful strawberry tarts that Maria and Tom had got at Selfridge's - amazed at how they layered first chocolate custard, then vanilla custard, in the tart shells.