The Scent of Coriander and Bay

Using the food dryer toy to preserve some herbs - a good way to get early payback as a little Schwartz bottle of dried sage etc runs well beyond the £1 mark - had the very pleasant by-product of filling the basement with a fabulous scent, as we pretentious wine-writer gits would say the coriander was the top-note, the bay providing a deeper background aroma, and the sage a subtle little touch of the savoury.

That is one of the joys of proper cooking, of real food: filling the house with mouth-watering smells. This morning's breakfast smell only noticed after we had been in the garden for a moment, returning to a comfortable mixture of bacon, coffee, and toast. Had we been using the wood-burner people would have thought we were selling the place.