Our favourite food in New Orleans

Maybe, like me, today you'll be celebrating Pancake day aka Shrove Tuesday aka Mardi Gras by swapping your normal Tuesday night supper of salmon and veg (ok ok pasta and cheese) with a little bit of batter, lemon and sugar. Mm mm mmmm.

Or maybe you are like 2017 me, or a lucky resident of New Orleans Louisiana and you are going to spend today catching beads, drinking hurricanes and dancing in the street. Mardi Gras, NOLA: its tagline is "the greatest party on earth" and I am not gonna lie, it is pretty fun if you are ready to embrace it - and you give the drunk guy vomiting down himself on Bourbon Street a wide berth.

9 nice (and 3 slightly bad) things | January and February.

Normally I begin these 9 nice things list with a whole expansive waffeling on the state of the world (ie. my musings on Trump and Brexit) or mental health (mine, mainly) and arguably now, 2 months since I last posted, is as good a time as any to give everyone (well my 40 subscribers and my mum and dad, hi guys!) a thorough update on my life, but I have stumbled across a playlist I made in 2013 for Will when he was in Australia, and my need to "jamm" (if you will) along is taking up 99% of my attention. So without further adieu 9 nice things (and 3 bad things) January which is all I have brain capacity for currently:

A recipe for sausage stuffed pumpkins...and a mid Autumn dinner party menu

I do not know how all the fancy bloggers and instagrammers manage to throw a pretty and delicious dinner party without all their guests getting hangry about posing for photos and not tucking in, but it was not on the cards for me on Friday night. Actually, I do know, 1) they can probably persuade their friends to pipe down one sec when it is their actual income (rather than this teeny tiny side hustle this blog is for me) and 2) they probably are less full of malbec at their dinner party photo taking time than I was, and therefore can feign greater commitment to the blogging cause.

Anyway, I am sorry but the only evidence you have of my (I think rather great) tea light, copper fairy light and jam jars of dahlias Autumn "tablescape",plus that I roasted some squash and pumpkins stuffed with sausagemeat , sage and cheese is the slightly dark photo above, which arguably is mainly of plates. So you will just have to take my word that these squash looked delicious and tasted delicious and therefore you should make them and serve them too. (Maybe for Thanksgiving if you are serving this stateside? Or just any day and every day if you are from this side of the pond cos Autumn so pumpkins so).