At the back end of the last century during the first dot com boom, I attended a conference on software development. A speaker from Microsoft boasted, “Here, we eat our own dog food”. I was troubled by this. Did he mean that the Microsoft campus in Seattle serves dog food to its employees? It turns out, he actually meant that employees were required to have Microsoft software on their computers? I wasn’t sure which was worse.

Anyway, his words came to mind this week during a dinner Andrew, John, Peter and I were preparing. At GreatGrub we advocate fun in the kitchen. At GreatGrub we say experiment in the kitchen. At GreatGrub we say gather your pals together, get your hands dirty and see what you can create for dinner. This is our dog food.

So when I was peeling the turnips that we were planning on roasting (along with a medley of other root vegetables), John grabbed a sliver and, salivating, said, “This stuff is way too good to roast”. We huddled together to consider our options. “Steam them,” I suggested. “Pan-fry in butter,” said John. “Grate them,” insisted Peter. “I’m making margaritas?” said Andrew.

Out came the booze and the simple syrup. “Eureka!” exclaimed Peter. “Grate them, pour over the syrup and add a bit of this and a bit of that”.

“It’s missing something,” I said. “John, what do you think?”

John, his hands speckled with crushed red peppercorns with which he was dotting the lamb, sunk his hands into the bowl of grated turnip. He left some red specks behind in the dish. That was the missing ingredient! Case solved and a new dish was born.

So at GreatGrub, do we eat our own dog food? You bet we do.