We had an excellent evening on Wednesday at Cookbook Club. The theme was Food from a Cold Climate and Signe Johansen came to talk to us about growing up in Norway, how the food is an essential part of the culture, the importance of drinking schnapps when eating steamed lamb ribs and much, much more.

Loads of people brought food we had: Tartiflette, Quince friands, maple syrup, Cornish butter and clotted cream from Rhodda, Arctic cranberry cakes, Quince gin, St Lucia buns, Limpa bread and Signe’s sweet Norwegian waffles served with brown cheese which were spectacularly good and will be on my breakfast table soon.

I made some beetroot marinated salmon, a dish I’d been meaning to try for ages. It was a great success and very simple to do. I read all the recipes I could find on the Internet and ended up adapting one from Nathan Outlaw. His used about twice as much salt as the recipe below and the herb tarragon.The colour was spectacular and the fish beautifully firm. I served it with a dill sauce and some wonderful @Petersyard crisp bread. This will be on my Christmas table it’s delicious and much more cost effective than smoked salmon in these straightened times.

Our next CookbookClub is on December 4th and the theme is A Novel Christmas: food from a book you love that features Christmas. A work of non-fiction is fine but no cook books this time!!

Beetroot cured salmon with dill sauce