foooods

Last night, my flatmate and I were talking about the classic "if you had to choose, would you go without food or sex for the rest of your life?" question (assuming, of course, that you could survive on sex and not need to consume food). Neither of us hesitated when we chose the former. I could, I think, quite easily live without sex if I had a wide selection of creamy blue cheeses to eat and lots of asparagus. And prosciutto.


Perhaps that's because I've mostly lived with people who really appreciate nice food. I've lived with kitchen hands and stoner chefs in training, people whose parents instilled in them the desire to put delicious things in their faces. We'd cook epic meals together, have weekly roasts, make trips to Mediterranean, Indian, South African food warehouses to find new things (mostly cheeses...). We'd have long and obsessive g-chats about what to cook for dinner. * We'd pick blackberries from the abandoned council land up the road to make pies with. It all sounds rather twee but they're some of the least twee people I know.

In my current flat, we buy cookbooks and plan fancy-ish meals. We're getting an organic vege box delivered to us every week (it winds up being really cheap! And they're seasonal, la di da la la). That's not to say that we're amazing cooks, because we're really not. We eat an inordinate amount of pasta and cheese.

One of my favourite chefs in Nigel Slater. He's a cook after my own heart: everything is made from scratch, there's lots of butter, cheese and cream and not too much fluffing about with fancy things. He has writes casually but is clearly passionate. Comfort food is embraced, which is good, 'cos that's all I make.


When I found his column in the Guardian online it destroyed my workday. I went through about 500 pages of recipes, and then the "Ask Nigel" section. I also want his book about vegetables, called Tender.

Photos from Nigel's website.

* Neenish Tarts

3:40 PM Alex: did you just call your mum for the recipe

me: i emailed her

3:54 PM Alex: il print that one

me: i can't find it

mo

Alex: what

the edomnds

we have 2 at home

me: yeah

strue

3:57 PM Alex: okay then

3:58 PM shal we do it tonite, can you slot it in

me: yeh

although, as i have said - zero dollars

3:59 PM Alex: salreight u can O me

me: unless we buy the ingredients on the flat card and make them for the flat

as a whole

Alex: yeh let do that

me: sweet

4:00 PM Alex: do u got the card

me: yep

we could get ingredients on the way home from work

4:01 PM Alex: wukid