I'm not sure how many things I can confidently say I'm really good at but if I think about it quickly I would say there are three key things:
1. Doing my eyeliner in a moving vehicle (not as the driver, I hasten to add). I have perfected the cat-eye in the time it takes to put on your seatbelt, get to the end of the road and swing a left into a stream of rapidly moving traffic.
2. Remembering people's names and never forgetting a face. It's a good skill that I value highly, but also freaks people out when you can pinpoint that 10 second meeting you had 4 years ago. Can make me sound slightly stalker-ish if I'm not careful.
3. Making something to eat out of nothing. It's a very good way of finding a pocket of calm in a time of stress; of focusing your mind on taking stock of ingredients, considering the ways in which you'd like to put them together, therapeutically chopping and prepping and stirring and tasting. You can bring order to a disparate series of items and turn them into something nourishing and fulfilling, even if situations around you seem impossibly difficult to make sense of and you don't feel you can change them for the better any time soon.
With the three key skills that I have, I find that even in the worst of times I can look presentable, come across as being polite and held together, and at the end of hard day, cook something to make myself feel loved, even if other people aren't quite aligned with doing that. I am by no means a great cook. I can't bake (hate it). I've never roasted a piece of meat (apart from chicken) successfully. I don't know how to chop an onion properly. But what I can do is understand what types of foods/flavours will go well together, and I am also not afraid to make mistakes when I cook. I'm not thinking about it going wrong - I'm just interested to see what happens when I'm finished. I think that knowledge combined with that attitude has served me well over the years as I've cooked my way into many a triumph, and also a few failures (rubbery prawns in old, sour white wine anyone?).
My preferred method for cooking is to get some garlic and/or onions, maybe a chilli, a selection of different herbs & spices from the cupboard, and see what else we have from there. It's nothing groundbreaking but you'd be amazed at how you can build a satisfying supper from very little. I recommend always having to hand a tin or two of chopped tomatoes, a tin of coconut milk, a couple of tins of some sort of pulse (chickpea, kidney beans, etc.), stock cubes, shitty wine (red or white, doesn't matter) and some frozen spinach. From this you can go far. One such recipe I return to again and again is a chickpea and spinach curry, borne from a need to use up a few things, not wanting to shop, and also looking for a vegan/vegetarian dish that felt hearty and pored over. It goes something like this:
Chickpea & spinach curry - this is enough for 4 hungry people or 6 - 8 smaller eaters. Also freezes well and is great as a side dish for a curried meat dish.
2 tins of chickpeas, rinsed
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 package of coconut cream or 1 tin of thick coconut milk
1 onion (doesn't matter which colour)
Enough garlic to make 2 heaped teaspoons
10 - 12 blocks of frozen spinach
Whatever spices/curry powders you have in the cupboard. I will list below what I most often use
Heat a splash of your cooking oil of choice in a pan (a deep one preferably). Add a shake of mustard seeds if you have them, and stir around for about a minute. If you don't have them, just go straight in with the onion. Soften that down and then add your garlic. I find that if I add garlic too early, it burns and you get an acrid smell and taste. Once the onion and garlic are melded together, add your chickpeas and your coconut cream (melted down as per package instructions) or your coconut milk. Make sure the chickpeas, onions and garlic are all mixed together and coated with the coconut cream. At this point, I add all my spices, working on the premise that I like to flavour the dry ingredients in a pan so they stick to everything before adding my sauce or liquid items. I don't know if scientifically this makes a difference but I think it makes everything taste better, so that's what I do.
For the latest batch of this that I made, I went in with the following: 4 generous shakes of garam masala, the same of turmeric and the same of ground cumin. 4 cardamom pods, a few shakes of ground coriander, 2 teaspoons of chilli flakes (or you could do a whole small fresh chilli, added at the same time as the garlic) and a couple of shakes of hot chilli powder. Then I found some curry powder in the cupboard so added 3 shakes of a mild one and 3 of a medium one, and then a generous sprinkle of fennel seeds and at this point I also discovered a small thumb of fresh root ginger, so I quickly peeled and chopped that and dumped it in. Normally though I'd add this with the onions.
Stir the chickpea mixture thoroughly so that the spices coat everything. Then add your blocks of frozen spinach and 1 1/2 of the tins of tomatoes. Save a half back - I find that sometimes you don't need the extra amount, as it's really the coconut and spinach that you want to sing here, but you might find the curry too dry as it's cooking so you can add it later on.
Cook all that on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan, and distributing the spinach evenly so it defrosts. When this has happened, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for about half an hour, or however long it takes to cook your rice. I serve this usually with brown rice, homemade raita (recipe coming another day), maybe some naan bread, and any cuisine-relevant pickles and chutneys you have in the cupboard.
The whole thing can be created and eaten in about an hour. It's a great thing to be able to devote some time to cooking whilst you unwind and sort through your day. It's a beautiful thing to sit down to a homemade supper that you've made for yourself because you feel like you deserve that. I mean, it's equally beautiful to order your supper and have it arrive at your door 45 minutes later but if you're in the mood to cook something, I cannot recommend this enough. If you're vegan or vegetarian this is appropriate for you, and also if you're dairy/gluten-free this is also suitable.
I think the privilege of a crisis is being able to look back on it and know you survived. It might be that you ate your way through it, which is as fine a way as any I know of for coping with difficulty. It might be that someone had to cook for you to carry you through the days. Give them this recipe so they can make it for you, with love. We are not unique in our experiences of tragedy; we all have our moments in which we are tested, be it doing eyeliner in a moving car or seeing ourselves through break ups and breakdowns and loss and hardship. What we all have in common is the desire to see it through and come out the other side with a renewed appetite for life, and for our supper. I hope this dish becomes a supper you can rely on in the hardest, and best, of times.
1. Doing my eyeliner in a moving vehicle (not as the driver, I hasten to add). I have perfected the cat-eye in the time it takes to put on your seatbelt, get to the end of the road and swing a left into a stream of rapidly moving traffic.
2. Remembering people's names and never forgetting a face. It's a good skill that I value highly, but also freaks people out when you can pinpoint that 10 second meeting you had 4 years ago. Can make me sound slightly stalker-ish if I'm not careful.
3. Making something to eat out of nothing. It's a very good way of finding a pocket of calm in a time of stress; of focusing your mind on taking stock of ingredients, considering the ways in which you'd like to put them together, therapeutically chopping and prepping and stirring and tasting. You can bring order to a disparate series of items and turn them into something nourishing and fulfilling, even if situations around you seem impossibly difficult to make sense of and you don't feel you can change them for the better any time soon.
With the three key skills that I have, I find that even in the worst of times I can look presentable, come across as being polite and held together, and at the end of hard day, cook something to make myself feel loved, even if other people aren't quite aligned with doing that. I am by no means a great cook. I can't bake (hate it). I've never roasted a piece of meat (apart from chicken) successfully. I don't know how to chop an onion properly. But what I can do is understand what types of foods/flavours will go well together, and I am also not afraid to make mistakes when I cook. I'm not thinking about it going wrong - I'm just interested to see what happens when I'm finished. I think that knowledge combined with that attitude has served me well over the years as I've cooked my way into many a triumph, and also a few failures (rubbery prawns in old, sour white wine anyone?).
My preferred method for cooking is to get some garlic and/or onions, maybe a chilli, a selection of different herbs & spices from the cupboard, and see what else we have from there. It's nothing groundbreaking but you'd be amazed at how you can build a satisfying supper from very little. I recommend always having to hand a tin or two of chopped tomatoes, a tin of coconut milk, a couple of tins of some sort of pulse (chickpea, kidney beans, etc.), stock cubes, shitty wine (red or white, doesn't matter) and some frozen spinach. From this you can go far. One such recipe I return to again and again is a chickpea and spinach curry, borne from a need to use up a few things, not wanting to shop, and also looking for a vegan/vegetarian dish that felt hearty and pored over. It goes something like this:
Chickpea & spinach curry - this is enough for 4 hungry people or 6 - 8 smaller eaters. Also freezes well and is great as a side dish for a curried meat dish.
2 tins of chickpeas, rinsed
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 package of coconut cream or 1 tin of thick coconut milk
1 onion (doesn't matter which colour)
Enough garlic to make 2 heaped teaspoons
10 - 12 blocks of frozen spinach
Whatever spices/curry powders you have in the cupboard. I will list below what I most often use
Heat a splash of your cooking oil of choice in a pan (a deep one preferably). Add a shake of mustard seeds if you have them, and stir around for about a minute. If you don't have them, just go straight in with the onion. Soften that down and then add your garlic. I find that if I add garlic too early, it burns and you get an acrid smell and taste. Once the onion and garlic are melded together, add your chickpeas and your coconut cream (melted down as per package instructions) or your coconut milk. Make sure the chickpeas, onions and garlic are all mixed together and coated with the coconut cream. At this point, I add all my spices, working on the premise that I like to flavour the dry ingredients in a pan so they stick to everything before adding my sauce or liquid items. I don't know if scientifically this makes a difference but I think it makes everything taste better, so that's what I do.
For the latest batch of this that I made, I went in with the following: 4 generous shakes of garam masala, the same of turmeric and the same of ground cumin. 4 cardamom pods, a few shakes of ground coriander, 2 teaspoons of chilli flakes (or you could do a whole small fresh chilli, added at the same time as the garlic) and a couple of shakes of hot chilli powder. Then I found some curry powder in the cupboard so added 3 shakes of a mild one and 3 of a medium one, and then a generous sprinkle of fennel seeds and at this point I also discovered a small thumb of fresh root ginger, so I quickly peeled and chopped that and dumped it in. Normally though I'd add this with the onions.
Stir the chickpea mixture thoroughly so that the spices coat everything. Then add your blocks of frozen spinach and 1 1/2 of the tins of tomatoes. Save a half back - I find that sometimes you don't need the extra amount, as it's really the coconut and spinach that you want to sing here, but you might find the curry too dry as it's cooking so you can add it later on.
Cook all that on a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently so it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan, and distributing the spinach evenly so it defrosts. When this has happened, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for about half an hour, or however long it takes to cook your rice. I serve this usually with brown rice, homemade raita (recipe coming another day), maybe some naan bread, and any cuisine-relevant pickles and chutneys you have in the cupboard.
The whole thing can be created and eaten in about an hour. It's a great thing to be able to devote some time to cooking whilst you unwind and sort through your day. It's a beautiful thing to sit down to a homemade supper that you've made for yourself because you feel like you deserve that. I mean, it's equally beautiful to order your supper and have it arrive at your door 45 minutes later but if you're in the mood to cook something, I cannot recommend this enough. If you're vegan or vegetarian this is appropriate for you, and also if you're dairy/gluten-free this is also suitable.
I think the privilege of a crisis is being able to look back on it and know you survived. It might be that you ate your way through it, which is as fine a way as any I know of for coping with difficulty. It might be that someone had to cook for you to carry you through the days. Give them this recipe so they can make it for you, with love. We are not unique in our experiences of tragedy; we all have our moments in which we are tested, be it doing eyeliner in a moving car or seeing ourselves through break ups and breakdowns and loss and hardship. What we all have in common is the desire to see it through and come out the other side with a renewed appetite for life, and for our supper. I hope this dish becomes a supper you can rely on in the hardest, and best, of times.
