A Just In Case Story: How the Stew got its Heart

20 March, 2011 – I wrote a memo. The title is prosaic, but nails it: ‘Plan for becoming a better cook and eating better while not letting it dominate my life’. The memo reads as though it was similarly rushed, which it was. A cry from a hungry heart, it begins by solemnly stating ‘The Issues At Hand’. These include: ‘I want to eat well at every meal’; ‘I would spend every waking hour on food, if I could’; ‘There is a constant bombardment of sources of distractions: Books which I own, books which I think I ought to buy, newspaper articles, recipes already collected but not yet tried’; ‘The sense that there is always more out there’.

Swirl! Sizzle! Wilt!

7 March, 2011 – I have little interest in gonzo food writing, such as when a fearless chef seeks out ever more exotic delicacies that prove almost invariably to be insects. Not that I find it particularly repugnant, more that it’s a bit boring, and besides, I have alighted upon something much more piquing, and more stomach-churning. The flesh which makes me feel decidedly queasy is people – or rather, more exactly and more honestly, the thought of writing about real people. To serve up others as subject matter feels like taboo… But it is unavoidable, and so I have a trick – developed to settle and distract the mind – which makes it a little more palatable.