I have finally got round to making a batch of pasta tonight, after a few weeks when I’ve not made any at all. It’s been a busy, busy time in my life and pasta can’t be made quickly. Not in terms of the actual effort of making it, more because it has to stand for an hour before being ready to roll.

Over recent weeks, I’ve been dashing into the kitchen at 9pm, thinking ‘oh what can I make that’s quick and tasty for supper’…..often there’s been the added complication of a postscript that’s been ‘with half a carrot, a mouldy red pepper and some yoghurt that needs to be used up before it jumps out of the fridge on its own.

Today, not so. I’ve actually got my act together and got into the kitchen at 7.30pm (positively early in my world) and used my last batch of De Cecco flour to make up a batch of pasta. I am so worried what happens next. I only know of one place I can buy it and that’s Alio’s Italian deli in Epsom. The boys there recommended it to me because I was having trouble with ‘sticky pasta’ and they said their ‘mama’ swears by this stuff.

I bought some and have never looked back. Now I reckon my home-made pasta is as good as any I’ve ever tasted and indeed better than most. (Yep – big-headed though that seems, it’s a simple fact).

I’ve searched online for it to no avail. I’ve hunted the shops down here and not found it. I’ve been into Alio’s and begged the boys there to do mail order but I can’t persuade them. The problem is that I think I’ll expire if I have to drag bags of the stuff from Epsom to Cornwall by train and as I rarely take my car ‘up-country’ that seems, at the moment, to be my only option.

So, we’re going to savour it tonight – it may be the last for some time. Puttanesca sauce and a big grating of Lye Cross organic cheddar cheese on top.

I must tell you that not 20 minutes ago, I was wandering round bemoaning a lack of inspiration for my pic. Then it jumped out and bit me as they say!

Last year, I was also shooting food - a fried egg sandwich.....now the wonderful Wessex Mill flour that the bread was made from is available freely online. Hurrah for that I say.