I don’t know about you, but I love potato salad. My mother made a deevine yet incredibly simple one with just potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise which we always had with braais (barbecue to the rest of the world!).

What, you say? A Gherkin soup? Never heard of it and don’t want it. Stop right there. It is SUPERB to say the very least. Lena and Dieter are deevine campervan friends and she made this for us 2 years ago and today and it was as great today as it was 2 years ago.

The name of this dish means: The Iman fainted. Why did the Iman faint, one asks? Well, there are 2 theories for this. The first one says that he fainted because the meal was so spectacular that he fainted at the sheer pleasure of it. I quite agree with him.

The Husband and I are on a reduced calorie diet (a version of the 5:2 diet which I will tell you about soooon) and are eating a lot more vegetarian meals and we LOVE this salad. We have it for lunch and this is enough for 4 people (and we are big eaters).

'Tis the pumpkin season and if you are looking for things to do with your leftover Halloween pumpkins, then this is the recipe to make. Even people who aren't called Peter, Peter, The Pumpkin Eater, and who aren't that fond of pumpkin will love these deelicious little balls.

Serves 4 as a light starter or serve as part of a Tapas selection.

I promised recipes with preserved lemon a looooooong time ago, and surprise, surprise, here is one at last! Although I think the photo of my cat is far cuter, I do think it is also not bad to actually post a recipe every, cough, once in a while. This recipe is quickly prepared and deelicious.

A must in Moroccan and Arabic cooking is preserved lemons. I first happened upon a bucket of these bright yellow babies in my Asian supermarket in Toulouse ( www.paris-store.com ) and just had to have them. Didn't know what to do with them, but just had to have them. Needless to say, 2 years later, they weren't quite what they should and could have been.

TODAY'S RECIPE: Asparagus Pancakes

I can hear the circling helicopters in the distance, dogs yapping and people calling my name, but I can't stop. I just have to keep checking yet another bush for another spear of asparagus. Just one more. Then another one and another one. The search and rescue people asked me to tell them approximately where I would be looking tomorrow so that they could find me more easily, but I won't be fooled. They just want to get to MY asparagus before I do...

I discovered Wild Asparagus last year thanks to our mates Anja and Micha (you can meet them in the post...) and now I'm hooked. I had no idea such a beast existed and now I can't bear to be without it. I found other types of wild asparagus on the net, but not this type. It grows in between really prickly bushes and blood stained arms are the pride of every spear picker.