Mick, our local newsagent, has retired after 33 years. We wish him well. There was a party for him in the Wine Vaults on Sunday evening and I took a tray of warm tomato keftedes; the recipe for which is already included among those given on this website. Finding small plum tomatoes now on sale in most supermarkets is a great boost to the flavour of this dish. Don’t worry about the tomato skins being chewy or trying to skin the tomatoes at any stage. All will be well by the time the keftedes have been fried. I used the contents of two 400g packets of tomatoes, cut in half and baked on the rack of a roasting tin for a couple of hours.

Coriander worked well in place of mint and I added a heaped teaspoon of sumac. The tray of keftedes had been passed around and eaten before a picture could be taken!