saturday just gone, we suffered a couple of false starts before we got a seat in the cosy little space that is milkwood. the cosiness has its drawbacks you see: sideways crabwalk access only between tables, and that’s if you even manage to get a table. alas, we did not. we waited our turn out on the footpath, got called in prematurely and then sent back out, and then when our promised spot along the front counter finally became available, a tall bald man swooped in from the street and laid his claim. by the time we made it inside and sidled across to the spot, he’d already ordered a coffee. i told him, politely, that we’d been waiting outside ten minutes for the seats and that maybe we could ask the waitress about what was what, but he flounced muttering back out into the cold.

his loss.

my luncheon (40 minutes in the making! i may not complain about CERES again), off the specials board, was a mound of middle eastern poached eggs. do they poach eggs in the middle east? i shall not quibble. the bounty of bitey rocket, drizzled in tahini, with little nubblets of fetta and juicy green olives and a good sprinkling of za’atar, made an exceptional riff on the old poached-eggs-on-buttered-sourdough number. dee-licious.