Arcade Fun

As the weather gets warmer various food substances which have spent the last few months happily residing in cupboards suddenly demand to go in the fridge. Demand, that is, in the sense that you have to eat round the mould if you don't chill them. I was made to do this as a child and still gladly do but others seem fussier. My younger son, who worked in a restaurant for a time, used to spend hours throwing things away that were beyond their alleged use-by date although I found smelling and tasting a much better guide than date stamps.

But the top shelf of the fridge is now full. Jams and marmalades have been added to the selection of pickles and pastes that normally reside there. If you push a jar of pickle onto the shelf another jar will invariably fall to the floor, a bit like a combination of those seaside arcade games - where you had to roll a coin into a pusher to get a stack of coins to fall over an edge and be your prize - and slip-fielding practice.

Well this lunchtime I rolled in the piccalilli and won a jar of anchovies. Then I put back in the anchovies (you always reinvest your winnings in these games, it's the rules) and got cranberry sauce. Just now I checked the jar for the spelling of piccalilli and won some horseradish.

Hours of fun.