Home is delicious

I wanted to make a special dinner to welcome Danny home again at last. "At last" because the house in Toronto has finally become someone else's home.

But I'm still operating on a sleep deficit. Standing exhausted at 6 p.m. in the meat aisle, I managed to select something I can dress up with minimal fuss. The main dish was a favourite old standby—curried roast pork tenderloin—and two new recipes accompanied it: mashed cauliflower (I added almond milk, butter and garlic powder) and a beet salad which showed up in the most recent email from the local CSA but also appears on allrecipes.com. Only the salad required assembly. I substituted romaine for mesclun, pecans for walnuts and parmesan for goat cheese. Accompanied by Pelee Island Riesling Dry 2008 it made a deliciously mellow, memorable, candlelit time at table. The cauliflower and salad will join my standby list.

To my delight, bitterlawngnome divided his bizarre Stapelia succulent and sent part home with Danny.