I love to cook. Many of us do, I know. The preparing and sharing of food with loved ones is such a vital ingredient of being me I can’t imagine not being able to cook. It is beyond being a provider or a good Mum. It’s about being able to create something wonderful to delight the senses from seemingly ordinary ingredients. It’s chemistry, its alchemy…its magic.
Over the years I have learnt many brilliant culinary tips from a variety of people. Whilst stirring rice tonight I have realised that the people that taught me the really useful cooking tips are also the people who taught me really valuable lessons in life…albeit sometimes not in the way they intended.
Take my ex-husband for instance – oh go on, take him, please do! (insert joke here as that one was obviously terribly poor). He taught me two very serious lessons in life… 1) how to cook perfect rice and 2) that abused children sometimes become abusive adults and whilst you can understand their behaviour it’s not right to excuse it and become a victim yourself to their abuse like I did.
My long lost friend Vaine in Australia taught me 1) how to fillet a chicken thigh so cleanly there’s no meat left on the bones and 2) that a little girl from a tiny island can survive neglect and run away from everything and still become a strong woman who has a generous heart and isn’t broken by her experiences. (She also jumped in front of me to protect me from a knife-waving harpy who wrongly accused me of sleeping with her boyfriend…but that’s another story entirely ...)
My Father taught me 1) how to cook perfect dumplings that are fluffy on the inside but have that all important crunchy top and 2) that Fathers can be selfish, bullying, self- indulgent lying bastards.
My Sister recently taught me that 1) baked beans are the missing ingredient to the BEST veggie chilli on the planet and 2) that you can dearly love a sibling without understanding them or even liking them.
My ex-boyfriend Gareth taught me 1) how to make an amazing cheese omelette with little bombs of cheese that explode and then melt in the mouth and 2) that sometimes I am a gullible idiot who let him and others take advantage of me fiscally.
My Grandmother taught me 1) the perfect beef to potato ratio in a Meat & Tatty Pie (sic) and 2) that the Roman Catholic Church is a rich, pompous, bloated fat man of a church that has everything to do with profit and looking after their own (sexually depraved Priests for example) and nothing to do with looking after women like her. Women who had too many mouths to feed and philandering, gambling husbands to deal with. Although I would now argue with her that Henderson’s is the ONLY relish to put in a Meat & Tatty Pie, not Lea & Perrins!
My Mother was my main cooking influence and showed me many things over the years in her kitchen. She was an amazing cook, and baked like a dream. Her culinary skills knew no bounds and she was always coming up with delicious new things for us to enjoy. She showed love and affection through feeding people. She is also the main reason why I struggle to look in the mirror and see anything except an unlovable and too-clever-for-my-own-good ugly girl looking back at me.
Recipes take on new lives in the hands of those that use them. They change, get bits added to and have ingredients taken away. Advice is occasionally ignored, mistakes are made and you burn the pan and end up getting Take Away Pizza. Sometimes though new recipes are discovered by making those mistakes. Positives come from negatives. So I choose to continue to be inventive with my Recipe To Life and keep learning new skills and ways to conjure up more magic for me and mine. Pass the Henderson’s…..
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