Friday, March 08, 2013

A salmonella escape

I was sitting chatting to people in Zac's on Tuesday when one of our newish regulars came in and stood in front of me. 'You're not the only one who can cook,' he announced, before producing, from a carrier bag, 2 pies. Well, one and a half actually.
'Corned beef pie,' he said proudly. 'My mother taught me how to make pastry.'
'Oh, lovely,' says I. 'I love corned beef pie.'

At this, Kay, who was sitting near me, hissed between her teeth, 'Don't eat that!' 

Now I probably would have eaten some without thinking; Kay is a little more streetwise. Looking at it and the chef, I could see her point: his personal hygiene was possibly not up to what we might consider a reasonable standard.
'I'll take them in the kitchen and ...' I left the end of the sentence dangling.

After the study we had birthdays to celebrate with cakes and biscuits so I put the pie in the oven 'to warm up' in the meantime.

When there was no excuse left I brought the pie out and offered it around (quietly mentioning who'd made it and leaving it to individuals to make their own choice). Strangely enough not one piece was eaten.

Which made me feel bad so ... I broke off a small corner of pastry so I could at least say I'd tasted it.

And then I discovered he'd left anyway!

But I survived to tell the tale with no ill effects. This time. I must think in future.







2 comments:

NitWit1 said...

WOW! close encounter. We have had a new and more debilitating variety of what we colloquially call 'stomach flu' in US this year. I have forgotten name of strain, but more severe but similar symptoms. I had light case.

I loaned THIS TIME NEXT YEAR to my dearest friend who was battling breast cancer at the time and needed cheeering up. She loved it and told others whom we hope bought it. She wondered if you had another in the works, so do you???

Jay said...

Good heavens. I wouldn't have eaten it, either. It's interesting that nobody else did either, but I guess they all knew this guy!