The Gig­gly Pig

No, sad­ly I did not take this love­ly pho­to­graph (the BBC did), nor have I any access to an actu­al Sad­dle­back pig. But I must tell you who does: The Gig­gly Pig Com­pa­ny. Let me tell you more.

It’s become my Thurs­day rit­u­al to stop at the dull but healthy-ish Pret a Manger in Ham­mer­smith in King Street on my way to my writ­ing class. There I sit eat­ing my blame­less half sand­wich (I do love that they offer a half) and a miso soup, watch­ing the world go by in the farmer’s mar­ket out­side in the square. Well, this par­tic­u­lar day I felt per­haps a veg­e­tar­i­an, no-carb, no fat lunch was in order, so not even a half sand­wich! Just a sal­ad. Well, all that went by the way­side when I wan­dered through the mar­ket look­ing for a chick­en or beef pur­vey­or for Avery’s din­ner while we have scal­lops, and there I came upon “The Gig­gly Pig.” The most charm­ing, apple-cheeked, cen­tral cast­ing farmer girl was there flog­ging her wares, and most con­vinc­ing­ly because she was cook­ing up sausages right there and cut­ting them into bite-size pieces with kitchen shears, all the while keep­ing a run­ning pat­ter. “Pick up a stick there, now do, madam, and try this Stil­ton and Aspara­gus. Hot out of the pan, just right for a lit­tle nib­ble. Or there’s also the Lime and Sweet Chilli, or my per­son­al favourite, the Jalapeno. Made from our own Sad­dle­back pigs, you know. Don’t be shy now.”

I was­n’t! I tried them all, and end­ed up after some seri­ous inde­ci­sion with the Jalapeno. So look for this com­pa­ny at your local farmer’s mar­ket: they appear at over 20 mar­kets through­out greater Lon­don, from Epping to Dul­wich. Just love­ly. They will be per­fect for tomor­row night’s din­ner in Wales, with John’s mom! That’s right, she’s wing­ing her way her from Iowa right now, one hopes, win­ter weath­er notwith­stand­ing, for a much-need­ed two week vis­it. Right after half-day pick­up tomor­row at school, we shall head out, with a dish of mac­a­roni and cheese at the ready to pop in the oven when we arrive.

So I believe I shall be radio-silent for the next week. No inter­net access where we’re head­ed, if you can imag­ine! I don’t think we’ll mind. After the past six weeks or so of pres­sure, sor­row, dra­ma, more pres­sure and RAIN, we all need a hol­i­day. A week, think of it, with no sched­ules, no goals, no wardrobe require­ments. Just fam­i­ly, long walks, lots of cook­ing, and… hot water bot­tles. You know when the Land­mark Trust warns you the house will be cold, the house will be COLD. See you in a week!