If at home on a Friday night, or Saturday come to the that, there are certain things I fancy eating and others that just don’t light me up because they aren’t ‘appropriate’ for those nights…inside my head obviously.

The things that seem appropriate for home cooked Fridays and Saturdays seem to centre on things that can be picked up to eat or curry – that’s it and nothing else will seem to do.

On Thursday night we studiously ignored the specially purchased, healthy salmon fillets and instead took ourselves off to the pub, the yen to be convivial overriding what I thought would be a yen for the sofa and a pair of pyjamas. Our home is like Piccadilly Circus with a constant stream of people rocking up to stay with us but, having reached Friday and Rocket having arrived back to ‘this precious stone set in the silver sea’, it’s him and me baby and some weekend food.

I had thought a little forlornly about the salmon when I woke up on Friday morning, and then I flicked through Twitter and saw someone boasting about their Cod Tacos and I got to thinking. I’ve never put salmon in before – turns out, there is a first time for everything.

We like to use these corn tortillas in place of the boxed taco shells and this not being Guadalajara, there is a slight dearth of blue corn tortillas around here, but these ones do well. You can brush them with oil and pop them in the oven, draped over the oven rack to form the shell shape and a crisp finish. Alternatively just warm them in a dry pan for a softer wrap. I say all this whilst knowing that we live in an area of London with a huge central and south American community and I’d only need to trot as far as the Elephant and Castle (yes that really is a place) to find some but I wasn’t in the mood for trotting further than the local supermarket. Shoddy, I know.

Mexican food in London has definitely come on in recent years and the likes of Wahaca have helped that scene, but what I really long for is the array of fabulous restaurants in California – I mean, not more than I’d long to got to Mexico, it’s just that I have some very well loved family in California so have ended up there quite a few times. I adore the questions about how hot you’d like your sauce because it’s being made freshly for you and for the warm breads, the variety of dishes and the unashamed punch of lime and chilli.

While I write, I’m conscious that I tell you of yet another, quick fix supper with no real recipe attached to it, save to say the guacamole must be made fresh and not from a tub. Avocados just crushed lightly not smashed to a pulp, the difference is incomparable. The salmon was simply pan-fried and flaked, the tortillas warmed and drizzled with cold soured cream, we shredded some cabbage and doused it in lemon juice and olive oil – a bed on which to sit the Salmon. When using white fish, we often make a light batter and fry goujons until lightly golden before tucking them into their floury bed, quite delicious but not it’s for right for the salmon somehow.

Rocket knocked up a ‘mole come salsa’ from some very fine chipotle chillies, and so we munched away on our Friday food, on our sofa, in our pyjamas, in our quiet house…just he and me.

It made me think of this, and to quote my favourite book by my very favourite author (prompted by an online conversation with our niece Chocolate Mousse earlier that day) “whenever you look up there I shall be— and whenever I look up, there will be you.”
Gabriel Oak