It was James’ turn on the cutting block tonight to host a Come Dine With Me event. He’d gone to an awful lot of trouble for us … even rehearsing his dishes and pre-trialing the cheesecake he was making for our dessert. What a sweetie! James had thought of everything for our meal tonight from the breads to start with, to lighting candles for mood lighting, and to ensuring there was adequate slosh.

For starters we had crab cakes, prepped from scratch.

For mains we had paella. Huge portions of paella. It was very good.

We could hardly do justice to our dessert but since James had gone to so much trouble we had to make sure to at least make an effort. James was so funny about this dessert. He’d made a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake over the weekend and for tonight’s meal he’d tried to make another one. But the second one didn’t set properly so he actually threw it out just before we got to his place! The first cheesecake he made was so large that he’d actually been eating it for the last few days in a row, and had given the cake to his mate Jason to bring to work – but when his second cheesecake didn’t turn out he’d gotten Jason to bring what was left back for our dinner tonight. Bless.

Another lovely evening with friends.