I bought a beautiful home made cottage pie from the local Notting Hill butcher and it was delicious with a splash of Worchestershire Sauce and a glass of chilled Pouilly Fume.

Cottage Pie,not had one in years.
Getting the balance of meat,potato and onion right is the key.
And I bet you had some lovely gravy to go with it:P
And what was dessert?

I made one recently with corned beef, which was a very old recipe, I think it was a Mrs Beeton.
It works but is not that pleasant.

Smoked haddock, roasted parsnips and beetroot, buttered cabbage with a large sliced cep.

Beetroot roasted,interesting.Most English just limit it to pickled.
In Ukraine of course it's for Borsch,or a salad vegetable,raw and grated into strips.
Best I ever saw though was in Iran back in the 70s,they baked it,and sold it whole from street vendors carts,very pleasant change.

I love beetroot though it might be the vinegar more than the purple stuff and my god does the juice stain?

Lunch today bought for me by a beautiful and talented lady journalist friend at a very trendy Baker Street restaurant was a delicious starter of mackerel and sardine on a bed of carrot and onion in olive oil followed by calves brains (I do hope those calves are coping without them) on mashed potato.

Delectable.

So you had dinner with a journalist...and who's got the brains?
A very interesting mix of fish and offal there...but still no mention of those famous JK desserts:P

I`ve never had a beetroot stain since I started peeling it under a tap.
Also fantastic grated raw with orange as a salad, Borscht is lovely and fun to make, but I tend to be left with rather a lot of it, so I`ve stopped making it.

That is one strong lunch J, everything but the foix gras there!