June 15

So here we are, back to normal, whatever normal is.

Usually, John cooks the main meal, but since I have been working from home we have an unspoken agreement that we take it in turns.

I feel John tries too hard with meals.  He spends ages looking through recipes and researching various herbs and spices and produces things like Moroccan Chicken in an Apricot and Cumin Sauce and Four Cheese Macaroni. Without fail the apricots have to be replaced by something else, like raisins, or just more cumin, and the four cheeses are reduced to one, sprinkled sparingly on the top, with extra mustard.

I am much more simple in my approach.  I am an egg and chips girl.  The first thing I look at in a recipe is how long it will take to cook. Forget fancy ingredients as well.  Adding marmite to a cheese sandwich is what I consider the height of luxury, although I do often envy John his rocket, lettuce, fennel and baby spinach with sweet tomato jam sandwiches.  

Sometimes I think I only really cook for John.  Whenever he goes away, the girls and I delight in having scrambled egg and toast.    I am enjoying cooking though and I have definitely improved in some areas.  I have even got pastry down to a fine art.  The art of cooking is no longer in the cooking, but in finding anything to cook. Even basic foodstuffs are not always available and, when they are, are very expensive.

I remember back in 2008, when the majority of shelves in supermarkets were empty of everything except pool chemicals, and my sister and I were going to write to Jamie Oliver and invite him to come and do The TM Supermarket Challenge.  This involved going round the supermarket ONLY ONCE and finding ingredients that you could actually put together to make a meal.  We thought he would fail dismally, especially if he could not go back and pick up that packet of kapenta or tin of spaghetti in tomato sauce he had dismissed on his way round.