Bubble and Squeak

For years I have heard about Bubble and Squeak, tonight I had a chance to try it for the first time. Bubble and Squeak rarely shows up on menus because it is homey food--improvisations on leftovers. Having Bubble and Squeak meant not only eating comfort food but also being folded into the family part of the dining room table.

I had my feet under my friends' table eating Bubble and Squeak because tomorrow they are going to Inverness where she will be hospitalized for a major op and he will have the hard job of looking after her, which, while she is still in hospital means mostly waiting and being cheerful while he is away from home and the things that give them both comfort.

These last hours before they could do anything much but wait and perhaps begin to worry I chose to fill as best I could. They are good friends, so there is never a shortage of talking and laughing and eating. Their kitchen table has so many conversations soaked into its very fibre that it could talk for weeks even if we went silent.

Between coffee and cake and Bubble and Squeak and more coffee, we knitted and talked about this and that and nothing at all. Other friends called and stopped by. Only then did my friend notice a pattern and an intentionality. We were just there because it was the thing to do. Even that nagging voice in the back of my head with the litany of all the things undone--laundry, dishes, gardening, writing--was silenced with a single wheesht.

I left half a knitted square for Oxfam at their house. "I'll pick it up when you're back from your spa treatment," I joke. We hug and laugh, and each of us hurries to our respective spots--she to her sun room; me to my car--for a few tears of worry and gladness until we are together again. Bubble and Squeak: making the best of what you have and sharing it around.