Out of gas

I don't know that it could really be called her signature dish, but the Old Bat makes a pretty mean crème brûlée.  Her dish is not just burnt cream (the literal translation) but also includes (usually) white grapes.  There is, in the kitchen, a gas gun used especially to "burn" the brown sugar topping.  For many years, the gas gun screwed onto the top of a small cylinder of butane, the sort of cylinder that is used in those one-man-type camping stoves.  As is the way with so many things, that gas gun gave up the ghost and had to be replaced.  It was replaced with a modern, all-singing, all-dancing gas gun, considerably smaller than the old blowtorch variety, and operated by filling the integral gas cylinder by using a cylinder of cigarette lighter gas.

As I recall from the days when I used a gas-fired cigarette lighter, it was easy to buy the gas refill cylinders.  Any tobacconist would have them, as did the cigarette kiosks at every supermarket.  But not now.  I have tried to buy a new cylinder at several places, only to be told that nobody stocks them now.

I do have a few more places I can try, but I'm not over optimistic of success.  What then?  How will we be able to finish off the crème brûlée?  What do they do in restaurants?

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To the butcher this morning, where we ordered the turkey (a large bird to be kept in the freezer till Easter when it will be eaten on the farm, and a smaller crown for us on Christmas Day) and, after lunch, a muddy walk in Stanmer Woods.  It really is most unpleasant out of doors today with a cold, north-easterly wind and rain flurries.  And mechanical things have not been making the day any easier.  There was a peculiar rattle in the car which seemed to be coming from inside the driver's door.  It had not been there yesterday - or whenever it was I last used the car.  Strangely, when I started the car up again after visiting the butcher, the rattle was gone.  Then neither the desktop nor the laptop computer would open an attachment to an email - until this afternoon, when everything has gone swimmingly.  As a result, I don't even know if I'm frustrated or not.  It's most frustrating!

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A picture of crème brûlée under the gas "stolen"from somewhere.