I love cheese!
M_____’s working all day and so there’s not so much pressure of time. A friend rang a couple of hours ago seeing if I wanted to go out tonight. I don’t, really, I went out yesterday, haven’t written anything much aside from this damn blog for weeks, I’m going away for a week to camp in rain-drenched Britain with two of the most passive students, and tomorrow will be more shopping for the house. Still, I’ve quite a bit of time today otherwise, and certainly relative to the last few weeks it’s a bit of breathing space. Now, I hate shopping and resent any time spent doing it, and so I forever try to buy a big shop and plan for several dishes. The only problem with that is that whenever I cook something I cook for several days, which means that even if I wanted to - and most often I imagine I would not - I could not cook all of these dishes before the veg I buy goes off. Consequently while I’m still living with my parents they nag me constantly, and all my plans go to waste. I still end up with as much surplus veg as I do when I don’t plan anything at all and just grab whatever comes to mind when I go shopping - this is the story of my life, that attempts at organisation fail. In any case, I ended up with lots of tomatoes this time, having used up whatever veg I had left for various planned-for meals in a Chinese stir fry which went reasonably well yesterday (aside from the fact that as usual, I added too much corn-flour into the marinate and it all looked rather muddy). Consequently I decided to try and make something that M____’s mum makes all the time, that is, what she calls Lecho. This is essentially a sauce made from tomatoes and peppers reduced in their own juice with onions, cumin, and often salami, an egg added at the last moment and stirred in, and served with bread or potatoes. I chose to serve it with quinoa - I have decided recently that I have been eating far too much in terms of carbs, and need to monitor this, especially in terms of potatoes. Mum had gone into town or Mardy Hell or somewhere shopping and promised to pick up some salami. This was several hours before I began to cook but she had not yet appeared - she has done so now and says it was an absolute nightmare. Still, by this time not wanting to settle down to eat something so thin and short on protein and substance, I figured I would try the other item that has been sitting unused in my fridge since I bought it a few weeks ago, that is, Tofu. Now, as a rule I don’t use much soya. It is an immensely overesteemed product, nutritionally speaking, but reading the label and seeing that it recommended it not only for stir frys but also for soups, I took it out, prepared it as per instructions, and added it to the bubbling lecho.
What I was left with after perhaps an hour of chopping while listening to Gary Steyngard’s Absurdistan on my MP3 player, was perhaps nutritionally acceptable, but no feast for the palate.
I used to enjoy cooking and serving up my food, as I did almost every day for the students at work. Even the most demanding students enjoyed my food. It was rich and satisfying. Once or twice I didn’t quite pull it off but it was never bad. Now I have to relearn everything I learned at university pouring over recipe books and trying out different things. nd often I really don’t pull it off. The ingredients I have to work with just don’t seem so inspiring. That and I’m left drinking sparkling water at the pub.
The trouble is I can resign myself to having to work harder than most people, to having to make everything from scratch. I just wonder whether I’ll be consigned with food to an analogue of what I disgussed yesterday, to not making the grade despite all my efforts. Not making the grade of my own palette, and not making the grade in terms of cooking for others and satisfying them, which is a read pleasure - I like being the host.
Maybe those days only a year and a half ago, when I had not yet explored my own problems so much, when I was cooking with expensive organic produce for myself and others, grating blocks of cheese into the mash of a shepherd’s pie with organic baked beans or risotto made with home-made chicken stock, were the peak in terms of my relationship with food.
I hope not. I’ll keep on trying, but it is hard to motivate yourself. Especially when that need to cook for several days means you have to get through a backlog of unappetising schlop.
