Green Tomato Chutney

Green tomato chutney cannot be found!
I was in the third supermarket, Waitrose, and even they did not stock the stuff.
‘Would red tomato chutney spiked with chillies do instead?’ the assistant asked waving a short squat jar in the air.
‘I’d bought one of those yesterday,’ I replied. ‘I just wanted to see if I could find the exact ingredients for the recipe I’m using.’
‘Ah,’ said the assistant who was smiling as he walked away, bemused that anyone should want to serve their guests such an oddity as green tomato chutney.
If he knew it was to go inside a bread roll that was then to be stuffed with a round goat’s cheese then perhaps he would have run away.
I’d had to queue for ages to acquire the four goats’ cheeses. That was after waiting for the man to unload the bread rolls and a few moments after recovering from being rammed into by another shopper. She had gouged a chunk out of my heel with her trolley and had then scuttled away with an airy ‘Sorry!’ as I limped behind the potato display to attend to the wound.
Battle worn and weary I scuttled back home. There was so much to do: there was the ironing, the bathroom to clean, the delights of cleaning the bathroom sink and the loo. Not to mention sweeping the entire house, dusting every surface downstairs and tidying some rather untidy rooms and clearing papers away. There were windows to clean and everything to polish. There were birthday cards to take down (the guests had forgotten my recent birthday and I didn’t want to draw attention to it and cause any embarrassment). I wrote an earnest ‘to do’ list and set to.
By the afternoon, with the house sparkling, I started on the cooking. It took an age to tease the fresh thyme from its woody sprigs. I cried as I cut up the 1lb of onions. I diced the garlic into infinitesimal pieces and delicious cooking smells started to come from the pot.
Religiously I followed the recipes: tomatoes were skinned and then deseeded, a lemon was stripped from its zest and squeezed. Pots bubbled and steamed. The white wine, that another kind assistant in Morrisons had scoured the shelves for, had been poured into the pan and was being reduced to delicious vapours. As it bubbled away I was happily inhaling the moist kitchen air. The celery had been cut on the diagonal. Fresh rosemary was brought in from the garden and I cut it into tiny pieces to add to the bubbling vegetarian concoction.
I ironed the place mats and set them on the table. I positioned the chairs and placed empty wine glasses next to each place setting.
There was not long to go. I left a book, ‘How to Fossilise your Hamster’ on top of the hamster cage in the hope that it would cause amusement and help to break the ice and get the conversation going.
With only moments to go, it was almost time to tackle the chutney and goats’ cheese recipe. I was filling the pepper pot with bouncing pepper balls when the phone rang.

They weren’t coming!

Oh well... now where's that hamster!