The plan

The Month of Sloth has been compromised.  It now looks as if my new employer wants me to start sooner than expected so we might well be looking at the fortnight or three weeks of sloth, which is a shame because neither of these are quite as poetic as the Month of Sloth.

Nonetheless, I will not be downtrodden by such unexpected turns of fate.  Instead I've come up with a plan of action to ensure that I maximise my time doing nothing and really, really focus on food.  So here's the plan:

1. Visit Smithfield meat market in the middle of the night and have breakfast in one of the local cafs - yes I know I'm kosher and yes, I know I can't actually buy anything at the market, but I'm embarrassed to say that as a born and bred Londoner (let alone with a food obsession) I've never actually been to Smithfield when it's been in full flow.
2. Visit Billingsgate fish market - a bit easier for me to buy produce there.  It's slightly less surprising I've never been there as it's beyond Canary Wharf (to the east of London), which for most Londoners is the badlands and generally off the map.
3. Go to Paris - this is for a day of pure gluttony.  I'll be there for breakfast, lunch and dinner and all the snacks in between.  Apart from just eating, my aim is to also do some buying, in particular of saucisses and foie gras.  As I've said in a previous post the selection of kosher meat in the UK is parlous, so a trip across La Manche is necessary.
4. Make sausages - very closely linked ('scuse the pun) to the issue of going to Paris to buy some stuffed goose, I've decided that I should try to make my own sausages - I can't buy decent kosher sausages.  I've got the mincer and stuffer, all I need now is the meat and the sausage casings.  I think I've tracked down the only kosher sausage casings in the UK, imported from Australia, my only problem with them is that they're collagen, not natural.  One item on the Parisian shopping list is natural (sheep/cow) casings.
5. Eat at Anthony's - this place has received some stonking reviews and seeing as I've got all the time in the world (sort of) I decided it would be rude not to try it.  So the table's booked, as is the hotel and the Deus, already a favourite, is on ice.
6. A stage at a restaurant - this has been a dream for some time and may or may not be fulfilled.  I've written to a couple of places and for the moment want to keep my powder dry on this until I know one way or the other.  If it doesn't come off this time I'm definitely going to try and sort it out for some time in the future.
7. Make more bread - having read the egullet lesson on bread baking, then buying Dan Lepard's book, I decided I should give this a go.  I've been cultivating my own leaven for some time and have baked some sourdough with varying degrees of success.  The Month of Sloth provides me the opportunity to get this down to pat, I'm also planning on tackling other breads, chelsea buns in particular - mmmm buns.
8. Cooking more - basically doing what it says on the tin.  I've got the opportunity to cook and prep and will use it.  I need to sort out the barbecue (I wouldn't mind buying one of these to replace the rusting hulk currently in the garden); I need to refresh my pickled cucumbers and generally spend more time in the kitchen.

The question is, can I do it all?  I bloody hope so.