I wake up some mornings feeling fragile. I have emails I don't want to open, thoughts I don't want to think, news I don't want to confront. Nothing is particularly dramatic, these are all the humdrum happenings of modern life, but I don't want to go there, because if I do, it feels like something inside me will shatter. I feel like such a coward. People out there are climbing mountains (okay, that's always seemed a slightly pointless task in my opinion and sometimes I feel like I'd rather climb a mountain than open an email, but it's still brave) and saving orphans, while I sit here, feeling like I will shatter if I confront my responsibilities.
On days like this, tough love doesn't help. If I give myself a stern talking to, I find I turn evasive, shifting here and there, trying to avoid my gaze, which is a hard thing to do when the person whose gaze you're avoiding is yourself. I drink lots of coffee and make lists. I like making lists; it makes you feel like you're doing something productive. I have lots of lists on my phone, computer and in my head running all the time. I avoid reading them for as long as possible. Finally, I open one email, read it and reply. Then I take the rest of the day off in celebration.
To celebrate, I cook. I like cooking because, and I think I've said this before, it is the whole process of striving for something, accomplishing it and basking in your success, condensed into, oh, half an hour, somedays. Of course that only happens when you're good at cooking, but the kitchen is one place where I don't doubt my skills. It's the one place where I revel in my competence and gloss over my inadequacies. Maybe because it's the one place that I've always been told is my domain, where I am unchallenged. In other spaces I am often made to feel like I don't have a right to dominate, but the kitchen I could have. Men rarely enter it. I know every inch of my kitchen and I decide what goes where, no one else. What if I treated all the world like it was my kitchen? Oh, what magic I could make.
Recipe
I was reading about Italian ragù and wondered if I could make it vegetarian. Fortuitously, I had frozen jackfruit on hand and it did the trick. It looks vaguely like tripe, but I don't let that deter me. I microwave the jackfruit (300 g) with a little salt and water until I can prod it with a fork and it falls apart unresistingly. In the meanwhile, I sweat two finely chopped onions down in a modicum of oil, then add finely chopped garlic (as many pods as I can bother to peel) to them. I pause to sniff at the heating garlic; it's one of my favourite kitchen smells. I either finely chop or blitz (depending upon my mood and whether or not I remember that the tomatoes are meant to be a stand-in for the patriarchy) three or four ripe tomatoes and then add them to my sauce, along with some salt. After this, it's a waiting game. The sauce needs a long time to thicken and get richer. As the tomato cooks, it gets deeper and deeper in colour and flavour. If I'm feeling fancy, I add tabasco, chilli powder and rosemary. If I'm feeling tacky, I add in packet upon packet of Dominos pizza seasoning and chilli flakes and those do the trick very nicely too. I also -and this is my secret ingredient- add in a tablespoon of tomato ketchup at this stage. It adds sweetness and umami. Then I add in the jackfruit and cook everything down some more. In the now free microwave, I boil a generous handful of pasta in salty water (don't @ me. It works, and I'm no Nancy Silverton) and then add it to my mix. I try to keep the pasta slightly undercooked, because of what's coming next. I scrape the whole mixture into an oven-safe bowl, top with grated cheese (my preference is for cheddar cheese that comes out of a tin, but others may be more fancy) and pine nuts (any nuts or no nuts will do. I happened to have these on hand and am trying to use them up because they go rancid faster than you can blink) and then pop it into the oven for the cheese to melt and the nuts to brown. At this stage, I invariably forget about the dish because I'm feeling emboldened enough to go answer another email. So, when I smell the nuts burning, I run back and curse, long and inventively. Then I top it off with freshly chopped basil and call it dinner.
On days like this, tough love doesn't help. If I give myself a stern talking to, I find I turn evasive, shifting here and there, trying to avoid my gaze, which is a hard thing to do when the person whose gaze you're avoiding is yourself. I drink lots of coffee and make lists. I like making lists; it makes you feel like you're doing something productive. I have lots of lists on my phone, computer and in my head running all the time. I avoid reading them for as long as possible. Finally, I open one email, read it and reply. Then I take the rest of the day off in celebration.
To celebrate, I cook. I like cooking because, and I think I've said this before, it is the whole process of striving for something, accomplishing it and basking in your success, condensed into, oh, half an hour, somedays. Of course that only happens when you're good at cooking, but the kitchen is one place where I don't doubt my skills. It's the one place where I revel in my competence and gloss over my inadequacies. Maybe because it's the one place that I've always been told is my domain, where I am unchallenged. In other spaces I am often made to feel like I don't have a right to dominate, but the kitchen I could have. Men rarely enter it. I know every inch of my kitchen and I decide what goes where, no one else. What if I treated all the world like it was my kitchen? Oh, what magic I could make.
Recipe
I was reading about Italian ragù and wondered if I could make it vegetarian. Fortuitously, I had frozen jackfruit on hand and it did the trick. It looks vaguely like tripe, but I don't let that deter me. I microwave the jackfruit (300 g) with a little salt and water until I can prod it with a fork and it falls apart unresistingly. In the meanwhile, I sweat two finely chopped onions down in a modicum of oil, then add finely chopped garlic (as many pods as I can bother to peel) to them. I pause to sniff at the heating garlic; it's one of my favourite kitchen smells. I either finely chop or blitz (depending upon my mood and whether or not I remember that the tomatoes are meant to be a stand-in for the patriarchy) three or four ripe tomatoes and then add them to my sauce, along with some salt. After this, it's a waiting game. The sauce needs a long time to thicken and get richer. As the tomato cooks, it gets deeper and deeper in colour and flavour. If I'm feeling fancy, I add tabasco, chilli powder and rosemary. If I'm feeling tacky, I add in packet upon packet of Dominos pizza seasoning and chilli flakes and those do the trick very nicely too. I also -and this is my secret ingredient- add in a tablespoon of tomato ketchup at this stage. It adds sweetness and umami. Then I add in the jackfruit and cook everything down some more. In the now free microwave, I boil a generous handful of pasta in salty water (don't @ me. It works, and I'm no Nancy Silverton) and then add it to my mix. I try to keep the pasta slightly undercooked, because of what's coming next. I scrape the whole mixture into an oven-safe bowl, top with grated cheese (my preference is for cheddar cheese that comes out of a tin, but others may be more fancy) and pine nuts (any nuts or no nuts will do. I happened to have these on hand and am trying to use them up because they go rancid faster than you can blink) and then pop it into the oven for the cheese to melt and the nuts to brown. At this stage, I invariably forget about the dish because I'm feeling emboldened enough to go answer another email. So, when I smell the nuts burning, I run back and curse, long and inventively. Then I top it off with freshly chopped basil and call it dinner.
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