fast-forward five years to the present

I've obviously skipped over so much to get here but I was anxious to get to the present. This was tonight's meal. In the first picture you can see leeks, onions and garlic cooking gently with butter and olive oil.

The final result seen here is a heavily blended potato and leek soup with smoked salmon, poached egg and garnished with parsley.

I got the recipe from Philip Johnson's book 'Classic Ecco' and I was a bit nervous about the combination at first but it was exceptionally good with the Tasmanian salmon I used because its flavour wasn't too over-powering.

My partner chose to have it without the salmon and egg. She went with the parsley though and I thought it was beautiful how the parsley looked like a butterfly.

The freshly cracked pepper added the necessary, fragrant dusting to make for a meal that won't be forgotten on what was a special day for us.

my memory fails me but I can still smell the meal

I've actually forgotten exactly what this is but I'm going to try describing it anyway. I know that I cooked the potatoes in some kind of broth and then drizzled them with a saffron sauce. The asparagus was grilled with butter, salt and pepper on very high heat so that its surface could be crunchy, the outer layer soft and the core still a bit fresh tasting. The fish if I'm not mistaken is barramundi and there's some kind of salsa on top.