shitttata

battling a bout of busilessness, i followed nigel slater's recent recipe for a "light supper".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/30/nigel-slater-light-supper-recipes

he is a funny little man, delicate with words as he is with souffles.

Strange, isn't it, how we often want a little something to eat in the evening, so soon after passing round the Sunday roast? Sometime around seven, I find an excuse (any excuse) to wander into the kitchen in search of the second, occasionally third, meal of the day. My head is keen to object on the grounds of greed. My tummy thinks otherwise.

his... tummy?

i imagine he and his nameless, presumably bespectacled, partner padding around their brushed-steel open-plan kitchen, poking and prodding bags of organic oatmeal, pondering the density of squash, gathering handfuls of bitter dark leaves and just... inhaling, marvelling at it all. not that wouldn't want to do the same; but if i did, and i wrote about it for a living, i'd try to at least make it sound more, you know, difficult.

***

it was tuesday evening here, not sunday, and all i'd eaten was a bowl of cereal, rather than, say, a roasted salmon--but in my life every day is like the weekend, and most days rarely get past the morning, so i think it's excused. to make up the vibe, i poured myself a stiff, warm gin.

worst things first: i didn't know the swedish for cracked wheat, so i guessed, and brought something back from the supermarket that was probably wheat ("vete"...?) but was probably not cracked. whatever it was, i cooked it, and stirred with various things, and this happened:

note the congealed porridge effect. delicious. it was nice, and it would have been nicer if i hadn't made so much that it put the fear of god in me. nobody wanted any, and half of it is still sitting in the fridge, congealing further. i might fry it later.

fecund things second: i didn't have a grater, so was unable to grate any of the three things in the recipe that needed grating: courgette, lemon zest, and parmesan. instead i sliced and diced as finely as i could be bothered.

unfortunately sliced lemon zest is the not the same as grated lemon zest. bits of it get stuck in the teeth and they taste... well, really bad. this i learnt when i ate it, and it tasted fairly strongly of lemon zest--or, more accurately, of lemon pith.

er, turd things third: the only pan available was half of the required 20cm in diameter, and it wasn't remotely shallow. and so it turned out to be more of a pie than a frittata. or, i guess, a really dense souffle. and it had to be cooked for about twice as long as recommended.

but it was nice. real nice. and the important thing is that i proved to myself that even if i can't cook, i will, occasionally, try.

shittata.