The tradition of Shrove Tuesday didn’t hold much weight in our house. Not that we didn’t mark it with the ritual eating of pancakes; we did, but we also marked every Thursday with them too. Part of childhood routine that parents must find themselves marking their days by - on Tuesdays we had 40p to go to the shop and buy sweets with after school. On Wednesday mornings my brother had a cooked breakfast to keep him going through swimming at school later on (I think I stayed in bed and stuck with Shreddies). On Fridays we had crisps in our lunchboxes. And on Thursdays we had pancakes.
My dad was best at them. My brother and I would sit at the kitchen table looking expectantly at him and the pan, condiments at the ready - sugar for us both, orange quarters for him, lemons for me - and then we’d wolf them down one by one as they arrived on the table. Dad would get the cold ones at the end, normally the ones that were a bit more burnt than the rest.
I’ve been thinking about North Staffordshire oatcakes all week, pancakes must be some kind of relation to them - a close cousin perhaps? There’s so little food in the house that I had porridge for lunch, and to tide me over until dinner I decided to make pancakes. I ought to ask which recipe my dad uses - but damn, Delia, this tastes like home.
Two in a row about soft foods. I do like steak, honest.
My dad went and got his sore finger poked and prodded at on Wednesday and came home with a bandage on it the size of a small football. Bear with a sore paw, we called him. When he’d said that morning that “there’s fish pie for tea”, I thought, great, and then thought nothing more of it. Then all of a sudden he was going out and eating the sandwich in the fridge for his supper and I was in charge of making the fish pie for my mum and I.
She got in, spread her snowy boots around the kitchen, saved my béchamel sauce from being a huge clump of butter and flour - would you believe I’ve never a made a white sauce before? (and do believe that you should always make sure the pan is dry before you start on the roux) - and then told me that fish pie was her favourite food. I’m 23 years old and I never knew that; I could probably count the times I’ve had fish pie with her on both of my hands. Without wishing to get over sentimental (and I’m all too aware that this is essentially a sentimental blog about food, so maybe I’m past that), there’s something comforting about making your mum’s favourite meal for her when she’s just lost her own mum. Especially, I thought, when it’s fish pie. I tried to describe why in terms of textures but I sounded like a wanker, just like I do when I talk about all that stuff about families looking after each other. You know. The smoothness of the sauce and the mashed potato sort of blending together, only broken up by flakes of fish. I left out the hard boiled eggs that the recipe recommended. Not my taste.
Anyway, it wasn’t half bad. I tried pushing the potatoes through a sieve for the first time in order to get absolutely no lumps - bloody hard work but absolutely worth it. If anyone wants to get me a potato ricer for Christmas, please feel free. And then the next night my girlfriend rings with a tale of salmon fillets and wintery foods and friends round for dinner, long story short, can you make another fish pie please? Two fish pies in two days. Making the second one I felt like an old hand. Ta, Leiths.
Last Sunday morning my mum called to tell me that my grandma wasn’t well and was in hospital. It was her worried but staying calm voice - surely all mothers have one of these - and so when she said she was going up there, I said, ok, I’ll come too.
So you know: hospital food still fucking sucks. Surely if Jamie Oliver can go nuts over school meals - there’s something to be done about hospital canteens.
When I left on Tuesday she still wasn’t doing too well, and I found myself wanting comforting and soothing food. Rice pudding at my aunt’s on Monday night hit the spot (served alongside her prize-winning strawberry jam). When I got back on Tuesday, my girlfriend greeted me with a Thai green curry. Porridge on Wednesday morning, half and half with milk and water.
Until I was 16 I was the youngest in my extended family - with six aunts and uncles that’s the youngest of quite a few. So when sad events happen within the family I often find myself reverting to type, feeling like a child in a swarm of adults. Maybe that has something to do with the infantilisation of the food I wanted to eat - soft, creamy, not too much bite.
Grandma died last night. Today all I’ve eaten is sponge cake.
Saturday morning, 6.30am, cup of Earl Grey before taking the parents to St Pancras. They are off to choral school in the south of France for a week, leaving the cat and I to our own devices.
Saturday morning, 8am, the fridge has bacon but there is no bread.
8.30am, I pick myself up from the table to drive to Waitrose and buy a loaf of sourdough. It’s no St John, but it’s a whole lot closer.
9am, arrive home to find the bacon has gone. There were two packages from the butcher in the fridge, one with steak, one with bacon. Only the steak remains. Nobody else is here (well, only the cat - it’s true, he has a penchant for licking chorizo in the dead of night, but surely he wouldn’t steal the bacon). Where on earth is the bacon?
9.15am, check the boot of the car as a last resort. Obviously it isn’t there.
9.20am, only now do I look in the bread bin to find two croissants and a packet of bacon. Thank goodness.
9.40am, bacon, toast, poached egg.
I’d argue it was a breakfast well deserved.
Baked eggs on spinach, sauteed potatoes with lardons, flash fried Parma ham on sourdough (that same loaf has made it through the weekend). All with a view like this. Sorry Bestival - you don’t stand a chance today.
What is it that is so beautifully soporific about hot milk and a slice of buttered sourdough? That sweet nutty flavour of warm milk against the salt of the butter and bread.
I have my own, as yet unsuccessful attempts with sourdough. Until I get it right St John is my bread supplier of choice. I can’t resist walking past: the white walls, a half of Meantime Helles, the assortment of bread and treats. Today; custard doughnuts.
“ice cream face” - Kanstanienallee, Berlin, August 2009.
I would drink wheat beers from this mug.