When I lived with my sister I used to email her from work at about 10am asking her what she wanted for dinner that evening and how did she feel about whatever I’d been thinking about since breakfast. At first she was appreciative, then it began to stress her out and finally she asked me to stop cooking for her altogether. I don’t think it was the quality of the cooking, or I hope not, more that she didn’t have quite the same level of obsession or get any great pleasure from thinking about food and planning what to eat all day like I did. I was working at a Mediterranean food company at the time so maybe the environment I was in influenced my state of mind, but years later the habit still persists and instead of living with my sister I live with my husband who loves food as much, if not more, than I do. Thank god.
I’m not a trained cook but did once do an evening course, once a week for three months, at Leith’s where I learnt a little about technique but have never made any of the recipes we cooked up ever again. Mostly I have learnt by watching and listening to my mother, doggedly following recipes, and trial and error. I generally like a simple, preferably short, recipe and look for something quick and easy as no one wants to wait till 10pm for their dinner. You won’t find recipes for tripe or any other kind of offal here as I’m no fan and while I live in London, so some ingredients are probably more plentiful here than in the sticks, I generally shop in the supermarket so there isn’t going to be anything that’s particularly hard to find. My favourite cuisines are ones like Italian, Chinese, Lebanese, ones that use lots of fresh ingredients simply and with relish. A lot of the recipe writers or cooks I rate seem to be women, with the exception of Nigel Slater, as I think they cook for real life and for what you want to eat now rather than many of the male chefs/writers who seem to be all about showing off and palaver which simply doesn’t translate into ‘I have ten minutes till I faint with hunger, what’s in the fridge?’ type cooking.
I work from home so I’m the dinner maker normally. Most of us could cook beautifully presented, apt and seasonal food if everyday was like the weekend. This blog is more about the relentless (and usually thankless) task of coming up with something to eat in a minute, rather than at some unspecified point in the future when you’ve been to the farmers market, remembered which bit is for what in the food processor and not freaked out at the sight of ‘and marinate for at least 24 hours’ in the recipe you fancied making for later that evening.
I have thousands of recipes torn from magazines and shoved in a loose folder, yet more stuck or faithfully transcribed into a scrap book, and even more cook books than I know what to do with. It seemed a shame to waste them – some of them are brilliant and I come back to them again and again. I shall give credit where credit is due with names and sources where possible. I hope you enjoy them.
Hannah Mitchell, a radical suffragette, coined the phrase ‘the tyranny of meals’ and described a woman’s life being “bounded on the north by breakfast, south by dinner, east by tea, and on the west by supper. The most sympathetic man can never be made to understand that meals do not come up through the tablecloth, but have to be planned, bought and cooked.”
Some things just don’t change all that much.
wotcha. am going to be AVID blog follower. can i forward to me mam?
LOVE IT!
My husband says he would have married me anyway, but oh my, isn’t he glad I can cook?
I really enjoyed having a peak at your blog and will try out a few recipes, suggested shortcuts included.
Thank you Alice! So glad you enjoyed the blog – I think your husband is an extremely lucky man either way…