You know what really gets in the way of being consistent about writing?
Moving house and having all hell break loose over the period of the next ten months, what’s what.
As if moving in bleak February and merging two households wasn’t stressful enough, everyone dropping one by one from Covid from day one onwards, running out of heating oil on the coldest day of the year when we woke to the countryside weighed down with snow, the never ending Tetris lifestyle that is not only finding everything and but finding somewhere for it to live, plus various house-related discoveries (spring plague of queen wasps and autumn invasion of spiders the size of a rat, anyone?)….yeah that’ll disrupt anyone’s cooking schedule. However good their intentions.
On top – or as a result – of that, something really upsetting happened. Maybe it was post-Covid taste receptors not firing, or just Long Covid exhaustion, the disruption, the adjusting to a new kitchen…but…for a long stretch of months, everything I cooked turned out terribly. There were a few exceptions, but not enough.
Or so I perceived. People assured me otherwise when I declared yet another meal to be terrible, but I just wasn’t in the zone, I couldn’t get the results I wanted, I felt lost and nothing seemed to be working. At one point I couldn’t even muster up enthusiasm for making some toast for fear I’d mess that up as well.
No amount of spending hours like I used to, poring over cookery books with a glass of wine to one side, managed to break the malaise, however inspiring they were.
Equally, after that very unwelcome bout of Covid, my health was in the trash. I felt tired, sluggish and lethargic, totally uninspired. Also, my job means working a lot of nights during summer, and I soon realised I needed to make a big push to get organised or risk either eating far too late at night – which I always find compounds sluggishness the next day – or worse, eating trash on the run.
So, eventually I had a word with myself, we invested in a new freezer and I embarked on a batch cooking mission to make sure that, despite our varied schedules and demands on our time, we never had an excuse to say there was nothing healthy available to eat. Microwave-friendly meals for me in the office, something that can be easily defrosted and reheated at home, heavy on flavour and emphasis on health. I started eating my last meal at work, early, and embraced time restricted eating. I felt lighter, my energy levels rose and most importantly, I felt good within myself.
And something clicked. I went out, treated myself to some ingredients good enough that I wouldn’t dare let myself mess them up, and I went back to the basics. Recipes I knew. Things I knew other people liked. Things I couldn’t really mess up if I tried. I found myself not only getting results but enjoying the process of cooking again. Ingredients everywhere, music on, glass of wine to hand, spending hours in the kitchen. As autumn drew closer, my thoughts turned to warming, healthy comfort foods, and then a memory popped up.
Years ago, when I started working the Midlands, my mother stayed living in Norfolk, moved to a smaller house and every weekend I wasn’t stuck in the office I would be on the road at rush hour on Friday trying to get “home”.
One autumn evening when I landed there she whipped up a beautiful, steaming bowl of roasted tomato and garlic soup that just instantly knocked the chill and damp of the drive back out of me. Instantly, I relaxed, embraced my weekend back where I wanted to be and all the stress of the preceding week fell away.
I realised that recipes like this were ones I wanted associated with our new home. So, when I wandered around town before my shift started recently, I popped by a local veg stall on the corner, and there they were. Big bowls of beautiful tomatoes. There as only one thing I was going to do – buy loads of them and recreate that feeling.
The house may be different, and the country and the decade and a million other things come to that, but every home cook knows that distance in miles and time can be instantly breached with the power of a good meal, the reassurance of healthy, nourishing comfort food and memories of food shared previously. And that’s what this is to me. Just a bowl of soup. Is it simple? Yes. Groundbreaking? No! Soul food? I guess it might be just that. Home isn’t just where the heart is, it’s where the people are, it’s where the food is, and it’s where ultimately I know, having got back into my kitchen mentality, it’s where I’ll create my own food memories like that cold autumn evening back in Norfolk.
INGREDIENTS
2k tomatoes
1 x bulb garlic (use three cloves once roasted)
Teaspoon dried oregano
Salt & Pepper
6 basil leaves, fresh
Olive oil to roast
OPTIONAL: Mild red chilli, cream to serve
METHOD
- Rub tomatoes in olive oil, season with salt and black pepper
- Cut top off bulb of garlic, pour olive oil over the exposed cloves, wrap in tin foil and nestle in with the tomatoes (add the chilli, whole, if using)
- Roast tomatoes and garlic at 170 celcius (fan) until the tomatoes are soft and the skins peeling away
- Remove from oven and allow to cool. Pour tomatoes into a large pan, squeeze in three of the roasted garlic cloves, tear up the basil leaves and add and blitz the mix with a hand blender until smooth
- Warm on hob, check seasoning to taste and adjust if necessary. Serve with crusty bread, and a drizzle of olive oil or double cream if using
The Food Waffle 