Being Me

When the grandchildren came round last week, we made Welsh cakes.  Two years ago, we made them on holiday in Wales and they were so delicious that the children requested this repeat performance.  Unfortunately, the aspect of the performance that did not get repeated was that, in Wales, I didn't transform the cakes into slabs of inedible charcoal by frying them in a cheap, thin-bottomed pan.  Nevertheless, the children tried to be optimistic as, one by one, I lifted the burnt cakes from the pan with a fish slice and layered them like pieces of soot-black roof tiles on a blue flowered plate. The plate looked highly offended, being more designed for delicate cup cakes than a pile of incinerated carbohydrate.  When the Welsh cakes had cooled (and hardened even more) we tried them. 'They're nice, Grandma,' the children said, biting into them gallantly but with true alarm in their wide eyes like those facing a zombie invasion or firing squad.   The only consolati...

It's Saturday evening as I write. This time last week my body still comprised one-fifth woman and four-fifths pudding. I was so stiff with starch that I couldn't bend at the waist to take off my socks at bedtime. I felt as though all my internal organs had been re-upholstered.   Despite all this, non, je ne regrette rien.  I had gone with two friends to The Pudding Club. It was their 60th birthday treat to me and - well - what an experience!  I'm aiming to go again on my 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th or should I ever tire of life as it could do what Dignitas does but with added custard.    Have you heard of the Pudding Club? It was started by people who felt that the traditional British pudding should be saved from extinction and celebrated. Because of this, the evening is full of ceremony and ritual as guests make their way through seven puddings, all paraded in regally, applauded and cheered.  Seven puddings? Yes, you heard correctly.  Puddings are...

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on unnaturally-coloured food. My gardener husband is always experimenting with new varieties such as purple carrots or white strawberries and I make a big fuss. I want my carrots orange and my strawberries red or not at all, thanks.  Likewise, if he puts beetroot into a dish and it dyes everything crimson or bleeds onto the plate, I lose my appetite, having anticipated dinner, not a Tarantino production. For me, beetroot has to be kept in a dish of its own at a safe two metre distance and wearing full PPE. I could only eat this while wearing a blindfold   'I've cooked you some tuna with mash and veg,' my husband said earlier this evening when I emerged from the front room having tutored three students in a row. I was ready for dinner.  I went into the kitchen.  'Where is it?' I said. 'On the plate,' he said. 'Where you're looking.' All I could see was a flat slab of what looked the colour of putty....

I've just eaten a chocolate eclair and it reminded me to tell you about Mrs Gough. Mrs Gough taught me to cook at the Warwickshire grammar school I attended in the 1970s. I think they called her subject 'Domestic Science' officially but it was 'Cookery' to all of us.  Now the subject is called Food Technology or Food Science or How to Grow Up Without Knowing How to Make A Stew. There is cookery involved, but there's also much scientific theory, assessment of nutrition, costing of dishes, market research, and other sub-topics that Mrs Gough would have sniffed at. The science, in 1976, was what the boys did, while the girls cooked them steaming sausage rolls to give out at break time in the hope of an invitation to the school disco to snog behind the school hall curtains. It's amazing what a 14 year old boy will do for a free savoury bite No, Mrs Gough was all about the pastry - puff, buttery rough puff, tough puff, shortcrust, longcrust, flaky,...

Let's talk breakfast. I have one Weetabix to start the day. That sounds like an innocuous statement describing a simple process, doesn't it. What could go wrong?  But that's not why you read this blog, is it, to find out what hasn't gone wrong?  Plenty can go awry with Weetabix.  First, I've never yet managed to extract a Weetabix biscuit from its paper packet without spraying wheat all over the kitchen counter. I've eaten Weetabix since I was a child. The paper packets containing 12 Weetabix were badly designed then, and they are now. I suspect that the same person has been in charge of 'Packaging' all that time. He's now 103, some kindly, frail war hero with a leg brace whom management don't have the heart to fire.  Well, compassion is all very well, and God Save the Queen and all that, and hurrah for Chelsea pensioners, but what about my ruined morning?  'It's like a Tarantino movie with crumbs,' I said to my husband, sweeping a th...

Well, this is all very strange, isn't it? I'm at home, in front of the fire, with no English students to teach because the government, aided and abetted by the Corona virus, has cancelled the GCSE examinations and where there is no examination there is no need for a private tutor. Bye bye, bank balance! It was nice knowing you. When news first broke about the Corona virus, the image that I had in my head was that of a man who drove a truck around the streets of Warwick when I was a child in the 1970s. He delivered bottles of fizzy pop made by Corona. He sold Dandelion and Burdock which tasted like a mixture of liquorice, aniseed and disinfectant, as well as a sickly-sweet concoction called Cream Soda which made your body 97% sugar for a while and corrupted all your decision-making processes. Also for sale were lemonade, orangeade, cherryade and Band-Aid, although I may have remembered wrongly with that last one. What I didn't know until ten minutes ago when I...

'You said you wanted some mackerel paté,' Spouse said yesterday, while I was typing in our online order from Tesco. 'Ooh, thanks for the reminder.' I've been hooked on mackerel paté since our August fortnight in Whitby, a seaside town on the North Yorkshire coast. I ate so much mackerel paté in that fortnight that I began to smell the same as Whitby harbour in high summer. Even splashing on Coco Chanel perfume didn't mask it, and seagulls began to circle above my head when we went out for walks. I swear my eyes began to move to the sides of my head. I typed in 'mackerel paté'. Two options came up. 1. Mackerel paté for humans, called 'Smoked mackerel paté'. But it was 'currently unavailable'. At least there was another option, but this was ..... 2. Mackerel paté for cats, called 'Gourmet Gold Paté with Ocean Fish'. There was plenty of this available. In fact, it was on offer.  I have the following questi...

Well, Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for following me during 2018 - your forbearance and long-suffering are much appreciated, as are all your comments. This year I'm meant to be writing and delivering to the publishers my diary-memoir 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' Watch out for news. I thought I'd write about fish pie as it's the start of the new year and there are many, many reasons I am not the right person to write a blog about new year resolutions ... I made a fish pie last night for dinner because there was a packet of supermarket pastry in the fridge that never got converted into mince pies over Christmas. Why didn't I make the mince pies? Mainly because I knew that no one would eat them over Christmas because they'd all be stuffed to perdition with other goodies. So, if I'd made 48, I would eat 47 of them and then my husband, who's not a major fan (of mince PIES, you at the back!!) would wander into the kitchen in mid-Jan...

Further to  this recent post about odd-coloured food  I have more to report. My husband brought THIS home. Here is the conversation we had about it. Me: What be this abomination, my master? Please remove it from my scullery or I will cave in your head with my chopping block. Him: It be charcoal bread, my love. Me: It can be charcoal, my master. Or it can be bread. It cannot be both of those things, or I am not a wench. Him: Would your pretty mouth like a taste of it, my love? I will tear you off a piece and layer it with fresh butter from our dairy cow. Me: I would like nothing less, master. In fact, I would rather eat my own ear wax than consider it. Him: Then I will have to feast on it myself which I am pleased to do. Me: From whence did you purchase it and how many pennies did it cost thee? Him: It cost three hundred and fifty pennies, my dearest. Me: THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY?  Have you been eating of the mushrooms underneath the old elm, my mas...

1. If a jar of chutney's best-by date is so faded you can't read it, don't use the chutney for the cheese sandwiches of anyone you'd like to keep alive. 2. If you were a cucumber and had been left unattended for three weeks, you too would weep onto other vegetables.  3. Mayonnaise fit for human consumption should not require slicing.  4a. Tomatoes which have attached themselves to other tomatoes with what looks like Astroturf are past their best.  4b. No, not even in a curry. 5. For 'within 3 days' on pre-prepared salads, read 'within 26.5 seconds' or get used to festered rocket. 6. No one needs fourteen types of pickle.  7. Just because it has vinegar and sugar in it does not mean a jar of mint sauce priced at three shillings can be fed to loved ones.  8. Only Stilton cheese is allowed to be that green.  9. If you've had to use a fish slice to get it off your fridge walls, tonight's pasta dish will be better w...

Is it just me? Is anyone else affected by the colours of food? I've just made an omelette for my lunch. On my days off (Mondays and Wednesdays) lunch is usually an omelette. I'm trying to avoid bread. We have fallen out, bread and I. I can eat most anything else and not put on weight. I have one thin slice of bread: suddenly I'm the size of a Juggernaut and can't get through normal doors. Two or three slices of bread, and people pass me saying, 'Look at that hot air balloon, out walking.' I reached into the cupboard for eggs for my omelette, pulling out a box of eggs that looked different from those we usually buy. My husband bought them - they're called 'Burford Browns' and there's a message - I call it a warning - on the box: 'With deep brown coloured shells'. The chicken at the top is looking the other way for good reason Fine. Deep brown coloured shells I can cope with. Who cares about the shells? They go in the recycli...

My husband bought me one of these for my birthday last April. Beware. This is the most dangerous piece of kitchen equipment known to man.  I've written a poem about it. Addiction I fear I am addicted to a substance - may need a doctor for some quick advice. This substance is so tempting, I can't help it. One portion of it just will not suffice. The minute I indulge I sense euphoria. I want to tell the world, to raise my voice, and yell, 'I so love cheese and onion toasties. I admit it. Toasties are my drug of choice.' The instant I think, 'Cheese and onion toastie!' My mind begins to tease and play some tricks. Whatever I am doing, I must drop it and get into that kitchen for a fix. I'm grating cheese so fast, I grate my fingers but nothing stops me once I'm in the zone. I'm chopping onion like there's no tomorrow ignoring email, Twitter, Facebook, phone. I'm lathering the butter on the slices as though I'm...

On birthdays and at Christmas, while we were raising our kids, there was always one present that had to be opened first. It would be sitting on the dining table, ready to be unwrapped before breakfast. Why before breakfast? Because it was a valuable computer game or expensive toy that had to be opened immediately.  Because it WAS the breakfast. Yes, we always surprised them every year by wrapping up their Christmas or birthday breakfast. What was in it? It was a parcel of smoked salmon, syrupy pancakes and croissants. It was a box of sugary cereal. We didn't let our kids have sugary cereals on a day-to-day basis. They now, in their late twenties and thirties, swear that this was a form of deprivation. I'll just say this in my own defence. The kids still have all their teeth. And they also have a memory of a childhood ritual no other child in Britain will have ... The childhood ritual was this. On special occasions, we made an exception to the sugary cereal...

Twice now, we have accidentally had a Christmas barbecue, both times because my daughter-who-was-a-contestant-on-Masterchef has arrived at our house with the Christmas meat, over-estimating the size of our oven.  Once it was a piece of beef which was so big and boastful, we had to tell it to breathe in before it came through the front door, let alone the oven door. Last year, she brought a goose which had an ambition to be an Olympic shot-putter and had been undergoing intensive training before its hopes and dreams were cut short. Both the beef and the goose found themselves being barbecued in our back garden, there being no room in our tiny oven for roast vegetables and meat with pretensions. We took turns togging up in hats and coats to baste or check the meat, avoiding the twitchy curtains of the neighbours who wondered why, if we wanted a barbecue at Christmas, we didn't just move to Australia. This year, we went to our daughter's house for Christmas and, by design rat...

Location: The Hill kitchen. Him: What are we having? Me: Roast, with those leftover thingies from yesterday, with a bit of .. you know ... Him: Mash? Me: Yes, mashed potato which I thought I'd mix with some ... some wotsit from the fridge Him: What, the butternut .. er ... stuff? Me: Yep. Can you hand me the silver thingybob? Him: This sieve thing? Me: The colander. That's it. Colander. Him: Do you want me to ... to ... sort out the whatjamacallthems? Me: Yes, please. Can you ... Him: Peel them? Me: I'll do the oojamaflips. Him: Okay. Me: Give me one of those knife thingies. Him: A knife? Me: Yes, that one, next to the one we use for chopping all the ... you knows. Him: Vegetables. Shall I check that the ... er .. the roast ... the roast... meat ... is cooked? Me: Yup. Shall I do some thingy sauce, with those Bramley wotsits from the ... you know, the allotment? And on it goes, the Litany of Vagueness that emits now from our thinning, ageing lips as we ...

My husband came home from his allotment yesterday with some gooseberries. When I say 'some', I mean 'enough to make a crumble to feed Warwickshire'. It was a sunny evening. We sat at the garden table with the gooseberries in a giant bowl between us. 'I need to prepare these for the freezer,' he said. 'Do you want to help me get them done before we cook dinner?' I stood up so that I could see him over the tower of fruit. 'No, I don't want to, particularly,' I said. 'But if I don't, I fear dinner will happen in the early hours of tomorrow morning.' I sat down again, and began. He was using a tiny pair of scissors, but I was using my fingernails, which was quicker. Pick off the top. Pick off the tail. In the pan. Pick off the top. Pick off the tail. In the pan. Pick off the top. Pick off the t - 'This is a kind of hell,' I said, after half an hour. 'Did you hear Farming Today the other morning? They were saying ...