Sainsbury's ads with Jamie Oliver cooking dull food for a fiver starting to get up my nose. Twee, simplistic, condescending. Which is a pity as his heart is in the right place.
Just had a meal for about £3.50 I'd guess. 89p for 250g of mushroom, onion from allotment, £1 for 6 eggs from a guy who rescues battery hens, free salad from plot too - red mustard, rocket, lettuce, and pea tips from the greenhouse. Bacon bits for 60p from Lidl on the salad, a pepper say 45p, dressing home-made, bread with rosemary home-made, and the second strawberry granita of the year from allotment strawberries and a 20p lemon.
What it comes down to is taking time to cook. Even if you know nothing but take some time, make the effort, you can cook. I listened to a local radio show recently where they were interrogating mothers (sexist gits) about cooking, and one had me screaming, saying she never made fresh, she was too busy. Does the concept of busy legitimately include bingo, the pub, and Coronation Street?
I love nosing at other people's shopping trolleys, and you get some doozies, like one woman with about twenty chicken curry boxes. Maybe it was a party, maybe an event. But for a quarter of the price fresh she could have done a better meal. She was doubtless too busy, too busy also to care about the crap she was going to present to her guests, throwing money at it not time. 'Let's have a bloody awful meal together' is not an attractive invitation.
How can you be too busy to live well? It reminds me of an obituary I read years ago for a guy who died from overwork, aged 40 killed by exhaustion. The paper, though, sang his praises, saying he built up a huge fortune in a short time.So not only did he die with the most toys, but he beat everyone else to it. Brilliant.
Real luxury comes out of time not money. People appreciate it if you take time. Food tastes better, the digestion is better, and your health is better. But you'll miss bingo.
1 comment:
Sadly, being busy is just a euphemism for doing something else instead of cooking. It could be anything: watching football; watching The Apprentice; ignoring their children; and watching cookery programmes.
And to that effect, this country could be said to be vicarious cooks only too happy have Gordon and Jamie show them how, only to let the books gather dust on the shelf as Findus get back to work on getting that elusive first Michelin Star.
Pass the peas.
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