21st birthday party

My mother's Christmas Book is not merely about Christmas but includes accounts of other celebrations. The first of these in the volume is my 21st birthday party, held on 5 April 1992 for 42 people. My mother records the menu as follows:

Vichyssoise with croutons.
Salmon (cold, baked in foil - Delia Smith). 1 x 7 1/2 lb, 1 x 8 1/2 lbs (3/4 salmon left over).
1 6 lb topside beef roasted medium rare.
12 tiny poussins (roasted with olive oil & herbs).
Avocado salad 15 avocados - not enough! need 20)
Tomato salad (4 lb beef tomatoes - could have been 5!)
Green salad (1 x frisée, 1 iceberg, 2 bunches watercress - too much!)
Baked potatoes.
Orange & lemon charlotte x 4 in big metal bowl.
Green fruit salad -  Prue Leith - apple, grape, grapefruit & kiwi x 4. Made sorbet with leftovers!
27 bottles Champagne (special offer Sainsbury's extra dry!)
50 side plates, soup bowls, dinner plates, soup spoons hired from King's College Hospital.
Big bowls x 2, flat dishes x 4, knives, forks, spoons, glass pudding bowls borrowed off a friend.

I recall the embarrassment of having Happy Birthday sung to me, two speeches delivered in my honour, a poor speech in reply and my mother catching one of the waitresses hired for the day merrily chopping the avocados into the salad with their skins on. It was a good day.

Chilled soup

I recently received a marketing e-mail from Waitrose which included the headline "An exclusive 25% off chilled soups". Below, it read: "Soup is the perfect comfort food to cheer up a chilly autumn day. That's why we're offering myWaitrose members 25% off all chilled soups until 7 October". Apart from the flawed logic, it is the misuse of "chilled" to which I object. Presumably, they are referring to soup which is served hot but sold from their refrigerators rather than in a tin or a packet. But to me "chilled soup" conjures up Gazpacho and Vichyssoise - perfect Summer soups but not, I suspect, what the marketeers had in mind. As a matter of fact, I'll happily eat Gazpacho all year round: and, in fairness to Waitrose, having criticised their use of language, they are the only supermarket in the land which sell Gazpacho (Alvalle is the brand) that bears any resemblance to what you can get in Spain.

My uncle Alex has a novel way if Gazpacho is ever on the menu at any dinner party he attends. He asks for it to be put in the microwave. Cold soup, in his view, is unacceptable.

In my mother's recipe book is a recipe for "Strawberry Gazpacho". I reproduce it below:

1/2 lb strawberries
1 teaspoon tabasco
1 tin beef consommé
1/4 pint orange juice
2 cucumbers
Salt and pepper
Blend in food processor.

I have not tried it, and must confess I would feel slightly wary about doing so. Beef consommé and orange juice? Hmmm.

There is a further recipe for another chilled soup on the same page:

Beetroot consommé

Boil pieces of raw beetroot, carrots, onions, potato and stock cube. Make up with one packet of Madeira aspic. Serve chilled with sour cream.