A simple dinner tonight, partly because I feel lazy, partly because I have just had my wisdom teeth yanked out.

All is green. Even that which we are watching as a culinary aid: Green Wing.

But first, a diversion into philosophy....

Doth the colour always make the dish?

Or is desire beyond the eyes' beholding?

Iago's foe loved beyond skin but loath'd

His love's desire he thought his love withholding.

Our task demands a colour naught but green

Yet loins' desires ignore from where they sprung

Thus all we strive toward shall be obscene

If our meal lacks sweetness 'pon the tongue

So to appease those whose eyes must be pleased

Yet sight of white might cause their eyes to water

Choose but a garish lick of white to tease

To sweeten all this vegetable slaughter

As love is meat to sate a soul that's living

So to a meal is beer and wine divine

Life without love runs long and unforgiving

Meals without drink fall short of the sublime.

Love simmers 'neath the surface of our thoughts

Invisible it shapes us all to action

A pinch of love the ordinary thwarts

But if a drug provokes a crazed reaction

Beside ourselves with longing do we seek

For that which might appease our writhing hunger

Yet if a foolish ship we fight the wind

Sailing against love we'll be rent asunder

Thus despite the pangs we might envision

Love's grace turning again to love's derision

Whilst love's meal lays before us on the table

Should we feast, to propagate its fable.

That was terrible. Write your poetry sober, cook your meals drunk.

As always, imagine freshly baked home-made bread sending a curl of steam into the air as it sits beside the pea-green soup, ready for dipping.

The trickle of coconut cream across the top is a complement to the cup of coconut cream I blended into the soup earlier after it had simmered on a low heat. There's also a dash of tabasco on there because it hurts so good.

The guacamole has little to no tomato in it, instead a little more green chill and a sprinkling of sweet pepper across the top.

Pea Soup: 3/4 of an onion chopped and browned in a little butter, add 2 cloves of garlic, peas, beans, fry gently until reduced, add stock (or stock cubes dissolved as I did in two cups of water), simmer gently. Blend with a hand blender, add a cup of coconut cream, salt and pepper to taste.

Guacamole: 1 avocado, 1/4 of the onion finely chopped, 2 peppers, dash of salt and pepper, lemon juice, 2 tbs olive oil, tabasco to taste, blend with the hand blender until creamy. A dash of sweet chili powder over the top.

Dirty Martini: 1/5th Vermouth, 1/5th olive brine to 1 Vodka, garnish with two olives.

Dirty Martini 2: 1/5th Vermouth, 1/5th olive brine to 1 Gin, garnish with two olives. (To be honest, I preferred the vodka one.)