WE’RE five hours into our slow Sunday lunch, guests have dined and wined to their hearts content and are now gathered by the fire anticipating a long drive home. Rose Prince is buzzing round the kitchen collecting her things as I collect my thoughts on the dishes we served today.

The great thing about cooking with different chefs is learning about the complexity of tastes and how combinations of flavours work together. Sweat some young, forced rhubarb in a saucepan with garlic, cayenne, cumin seeds and a generous helping of tamarind concentrate to create a sauce, sweeten with soft dark brown sugar.

Take duck legs, marinade in ground cloves, coriander and orange zest, then sear them off in a pan until golden and slow roast in the oven for a couple of hours until the meat falls off the bone. Remove the skin in one piece, lay on a baking sheet and and crisp up in a hot oven.

Sautee onions in oil, butter, garlic and all-spice, sofrito style for half an hour or so, stir in cracked freekeh, add home made chicken stock. Cover with baking parchment and cook until tender. Pull the meat off the bone, shred and fold into the freekeh along with chopped parsley.

Spoon the mixture into bowls to serve, scatter with pomegranate seeds and more parsley, lay the crispy duck skin on top, drizzle with the tamarind sauce and add a few blobs of Greek yoghurt. Then delight in every mouthful as the hot duck hits the cold yoghurt and a hint of that bittersweet sauce creeps onto your tongue. The crispy crunch of duck skin crackles against the chewy freekeh, delivering the spice and orange, whilst the fresh bright parsley gives off an approving wink.

Of course if you want to understand the finer details of how to cook this dish and what quantities to use, you need to buy the book. Rose Prince; Dinner and Party. Then again, you might want to surround yourself with new ideas and populate your book shelves with inspiring new friends.

After all, that’s what true friends do, inspire you on to greatness, to succeed, to grow, to shine. I’ve met some wonderful people over the years I’ve spent cooking, chefs, cooks, enthusiasts, all in search of their own voice with which to interpret the world of food, flavour and the perfect dining experience.

The great thing about all of them is, not only their enthusiasm to share their knowledge and ideas but also their dedication to making our lives richer and more interesting as a result of their passion.

That’s my sermon for today, I’m just about to dip into Sumayya Usmani’s ‘Summers under the Tamarind Tree’. I’ve never been to Pakistan, I’m looking forward to visiting through these pages.