Milk Tart

There is a definite theme of comfort food emerging for which I make no apology. Nobody ever made the same appreciative noises eating even the nicest of my healthy dishes as they do when they attack the cake. But milk tart, which I encountered for the first time when I lived in South Africa for a spell, has a comfort magic all of its own. If you get the timing of your filling right, then what you get is a mouthful of spicy, cinnamon crust, with melting, unctuous, slightly frothy, light but substantial, utterly deliciously vanilla-y, wobbly custard like topping. This is the cake where nobody ever has just one slice. It's brilliant as breakfast, tea, dessert, picnic food...I have taken it twice as a gift for a sick person, and it was snarfed up before I had left, on both occasions. I made it today as a reward for managing to get on and off a bus for the first time - with arms like Popeye's from 6 weeks of crutch- hopping, I could probably jump on to the back of a truck at this point, but I thought I would limit my ambition for now. The thought of tea and milk tart on completion of my mission was enough to put turbo drive into my hobble, to the amusement of some construction workers I charged past on my way down the hill.

On the subject of crutches, it is amazing how strangers have to talk to you about what you might have done to yourself. It's like when you're pregnant and total strangers pat your bump.Paralympics, is the most oft-used word, usually by witnesses to my turbo-hop down the hill. Skiing, is another (I have never skiied in my life). And people talk more loudly. Guys, here is a tip. Foot surgery does not make you deaf.