With an audience looking over your shoulder you always do things differently. One of the things I enjoy most about writing this blog is that it encourages invention – encourages me to try new things so that I can write about them.
From an early age I have always loved cooking – a love passed down from my mother, but developed over the years by experimenting on friends, wanting to try new things, by travel, by growing vegetables and by many other aspects of my life. My Grandmother and mother both always kept food notes – their own treasured recipe books with ideas passed from friends to each other. In a day before 24 hour cooking channels and abundant celebrity chefs, ideas and recipes were cooked up, passed on, and often passed down a generation in worn and stained notebooks. Writing this blog sometimes reminds me of those ways of doing things: writing things down is a way of formalising ideas, making you think longer and harder about what you are doing and making something ready to pass on.
Tonight’s supper might still be considered a work in progress. I’m not sure if it is cooking or an adult version of kids making lotions and potions in the garden. I’ve thrown coriander, sugar, lime juice, mustard, sugar, root ginger and toasted cumin seed in the blender, blended it together and then slowly added sunflower oil whilst the blender whirls to make a thick, gloopy dressing. We have the very final tomatoes and runner beans at the allotment at the moment, and I wanted something to go with a quick prawn curry. One of the best curries I ever had was a prawn Jeera, packed with cumin, and I guess my thoughts have been wandering that way, but I also like the crunchy tomato salad that is often served with poppadoms. With this in mind, I have blanched the beans and very finely chopped a shallot and some celery. I have diced the tomatoes and I am going to mix this with some of my invented dressing, tasting as I go, and hope that somewhere in there my child-like attempt at making lotions and potions will actually turn out to be rather magical and worth the effort put in to growing the tomatoes in the first place.
Picture Credits
Geronimo pasta bowl by Bliss Home
Acacia wood chopping board by House Doctor