It´s half past two now, after going trough several cook books I decided to improvise. I often do. And I also decided to ask a little of help from my friends in the freezer.
Now a break with a glass of red wine.
It will be pork noisettes with green pepper cheese tops, onions cooked in balsamico and herbs, baby carrots, Italian style potato and broccoli gratines as a main. Cambas con aioli and French country bread as a starter. Ben and Jerry`s Cookie Dough ice cream as a dessert.
I have often wondered why cooking and good food is essential for me. Maybe one of the reasons lies in my childhood, when first there was not so much food - I was born after the Second World War and food was simple and scarse.
My mom was a good cook, so was my stepmother. My father, though, was unemloyed quite often, which ment very very simple food. And very small portions, since we were six in the family. Scool provided something horrible called macaroni in milk with hard bread, or we had to collect our own lingonberries for the porridge the school cook then made out of rye dough, water and lingonberries. From those days I have an in-deep reluctancy in going to the forests or picking anything up. I prefer markets.
When I grew up and started my wandering life in Scandinavia and Europe, I found a new world when meeting people from different cultures; often we ate. Also even food in Sweden was full of surprises for me - their bread, their sausages, the way they made pea soup, all that was different from what I had learned home in Finland. Even their coffee was different.
Later, living in London, I learned from different cultures by having friends from India, China, Latin America, the Carribeans. And we ate.
One of my boyfriends from that period came from a very wealthy family in Delhi. He, as the rest of us, lived in a commune in Earls Court. We had a party every Friday, when his Mum sent fresh food in containers brought by a driver from Heathrow where it had landed on an Air India plane. This is how I learned about Indian food, which I still love very much. Today I use fork and knife, though, not my fingers, when enjoying it!
I must admit that the English food for me then was what we had as breakfast, lunch or dinner where I worked, in a big London hotel first, later in a big London hospital. Staff food. Nutricious, not very delicious. I especially remember cooked cabbage, that looked very tired on my plate and had no taste. Like eating wash cloth.
Later, when I traveled more in England for my job, I ate in various country pubs with my friends and the food was/is delicious!
I especially remember those rides with Outi and Chris to Oxfordshire countryside and latest our fantastic "tapas" with Terri in Hop Pole in Bath!
Well, my break is about to end, so I finish my glass in the kitchen.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti