Correcting your mistakes/I love mustard
I’m not a big one for watching TV, but there are some shows I have a weakness for, and I must say that though I usually abhor any phenomenon that crops up, proves popular and becomes foil for coked-up commissioning editors to proliferate - like antiques shows, DIY shows and property shows - I am glad that cooking programmes have proven to have an enduring apeal. I watch Ready Steady Cook and can really wind down to it, something that is rare for me.
I was watching one such on Saturday while taking a break from Checkmate, a story I have had in mind for a good few years and which could form part of a collection, Labour in Vain which could predate Family Fortunes and introduce some of the characters, notably Hippie.
There was a chef on the programme, an ozzie fella I’ve seen before. I can’t remember too well what he was cooking, exept that I think it may have involved salsa verde, something I have seen in more than one such programme recently, and that he said something which struck me as very true.
“A lot of cooking is about learning to correct your mistakes.”
Me and M____ made a Goulash the other day from a recipe her mum sent her by text message. Quite aside from this it was also an example of too many cooks. It didn’t go well. We cooked it in our new pressure cooker and followed the recipe, but of course, it was nothing like her mother’s (she is an excellent cook). Indeed, it was pretty tasteless.
Still, we’d put decent beef in it and however appetising it was it seemed a shame to throw it away. So the other day I fried a few onions with finely chopped red pepper, mustard powder and paprika, with white wine vinegar and a little soy sauce, and added them to the goulash, heating it and reducing it a little to add the flavour. It worked!
I’ve still got plenty to learn, but there are days I can pull something off and still enjoy my food, and eat right too. And when it does, I really feel good. In fact, since recently I have gone running a couple of times before work, I am reminded of John Irving’s Garp, who writes, runs and cooks because when one isn’t going well another is. I’m getting to feel that way.
Oh, and I have discovered how much I love mustard, hence the second title of the post, to offset that negative post a while back about how I love cheese.
I haven’t posted for a while with moving to the new house and having no internet etc. I’ve had my ups and downs. I started having some really angry reveries, particularly after eating some sugary cereals, and couldn’t be around people after trying to reintroduce some yeast-free soda bread, but over the last few days I’ve been feeling great - caffein-free and alcohol-free for a good while now, and following the diet, with very little fruit. Dietician next week, and crossed fingers he won’t be another useless nincompoop!
