On holiday, will cook

 There is no better way of immersing yourself in local culture than cooking on vacation

Last night, over dinner with some friends, I happened to mention how much I enjoyed cooking dinner during my recent vacation in London because of the freshness and quality of the produce. My announcement was met with astonishment, with the general consensus being that I was a glutton for punishment if I spent my evenings cooking while I was on holiday.

 

Well, what can I say? There is nothing I enjoy more than cooking when I am abroad, trying out new varieties of mushrooms, buying cuts of meat that I never find in India, and using condiments I haven’t even heard of before. I enjoy eating out at lunch – and occasionally at dinner as well – but there is nothing I find more satisfying than rustling up a tasty meal for my husband and myself on our nights in (when we are staying in a service apartment rather than a hotel room).

 

It all started many decades ago, when as a young journalist I spent a few weeks working in a media house in London. Not having enough money to eat out every day meant that I had to learn to feed myself using the tiny kitchen in the apartment I was staying in. I began by buying ready-meals and popping them into the microwave, graduated to boiling some pasta and eating it with bottled sauces, and when I got bored with my tiny repertoire of dishes, I began experimenting with fresh produce. 

 

I would fry up some mushrooms with onions and garlic and pile them on buttered toast. I would boil some potatoes and make a nice German-style salad to go with sausages. I would buy vine-fresh tomatoes, slice them open, pour some olive oil over them, season with fresh herbs and Maldon salt and enjoy them with a nice piece of fish. I didn’t make too much effort because I was often tired after a day’s work, but even with minimal work, my meals became more memorable the more thought I put into them.

 

Ever since then, whenever I go abroad, my first stop is always the grocery store. If I don’t have a kitchen then I stock up on cold cuts and some Kettle chips and make a picnic of it in my hotel room. If I do have a kitchen, well then, I let my inner Domestic Goddess run wild. 

 

I still remember one memorable trip to Tuscany, when I had just started learning Italian. My husband and I would spend days trawling through the vineyards sampling the wares on offer, but in the evenings, we would settle in the cosy kitchen of the villa we were staying in and cook our evening meal together. I still believe I learnt more Italian talking to the local stall-owners about artichokes, peppers, prawns, mozzarella and other ingredients and discussing how best to use them than I did in my regular evening Italian classes back home.

 

I still apply some of those lessons when I cook while on holiday. Last fortnight, in London, for example, I oven-roasted some colourful peppers with garlic, herbs and lots of olive oil, par-boiled some potatoes and quickly stir-fried them till they were golden and glorious. We ate them with Spanish-style sausages, washed down with red wine. 

 

And that, to me, was the true taste of what a vacation should be like.

Soiree not sorry

How to host a dinner party without going crazy

I have to say that my world tilted on its axis when I read that the original Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson, was giving up on hosting dinner parties. You know the kind I mean, don’t you? They featured on most of her TV shows, all twinkly fairy lights, a brilliantly laid table and platters and platters of interesting dishes, drawn from every corner of the world. 

Well, Nigella is giving up on all that now. She has had enough of being the hostess with the mostest. Now when she entertains, she makes one big dish with a few accompaniments, sets everything on a side table and asks everyone to help themselves buffet style. And yes, did I mention that nobody is required to dress up either? Her guests are welcome to trundle in wearing their pyjamas. 

I have to pause at this point and make it clear to my friends and family that if they ever turn up for dinner at mine in their nightwear, they will be sent right back home to change into something decent. If I can make the effort to cook dinner, they can make the effort to put some actual clothes on. 

But sartorial debates aside, is Nigella right about this? Are dinner parties over? Is entertaining at home now a matter of opening a packet of chips and ordering in a Biryani while everyone lounges around in their nighties? 

Well, I hope not. There is nothing quite as gratifying going to a friend’s house and discovering that he or she has spent the day making all the dishes you love; settling down in a room scented with candles while ambient music sets the tone; whetting your appetite with some well-chosen nibbles; and then sitting down to a long, multi-course dinner that you haven’t cooked. I don’t know about you, but I would get dressed up for that!

That said, Nigella has a point. There is no point hosting a dinner party if the experience is just going to stress you out. The idea of having friends and family over is to enjoy time with your loved ones, not fret about whether the soufflés will rise or the jelly will set. (Keeping it simple but scrumptious is the way to go.)

So if you still want to entertain in style but don’t want to break out in hives about it, what should you do? Well, here are my top tips:

• Invest time in prep. Choose a menu in which at least 50 percent of the dishes can be cooked a day (or even two) before and stored - and may even be the better for it. That puts less pressure on you on the day of the party. 
• Don’t put anything on the menu that needs to be done a la minute (as in, on the spot). That is an invitation for things to go wrong. 
• Don’t make two menus for vegetarians and meat eaters. That’s too much work. If you have vegetarians on your table make an essentially vegetarian meal and add two meat or fish dishes. Trust me, no one will complain. 
• Don’t bother with making dessert. It’s too much of a palaver and by the end of the meal, everyone is too full to do it justice anyway. Just order in a cake or macaroons. Or even some ice-cream - it will help you chill!

Can't cook? Or won't cook?

You can take pride in one, not the other

“I can’t cook.” I’ve lost count of the number of times I have heard this phrase over the last few years. It is uttered by both men and women, old and young, married and single people. Lacking the ability to cook is, apparently, an equal opportunity offence.

Yes, you read that right. I did use the word ‘offence’. And that’s because, as far as I am concerned, not being able to cook is to lack a vital life skill - you know the kind that keeps you alive. And for the life of me I cannot fathom why people take such pride in announcing that they don’t possess it.

Before you all write in irately, I am well aware that in our modern age those who don’t know how to fry an egg will not go to bed hungry. That our world is heaving with restaurants that will keep them well fed (and perhaps better fed) if they don’t know how to cook. That if these non-cooks don’t choose to venture out they can order in everything from Hakka noodles to sushi rolls to channa bhaturas. And that most middle-class folk in India can afford to hire a part-time cook who comes by once a day and stocks their fridge with food that they can re-heat for lunch and dinner.

So, I accept that in this day and age, it is often not necessary to cook at all.

I can also get on board with the fact that many people simply don’t want to cook. That they have demanding jobs that leave them drained at the end of the day and they don’t want to come home and spend a couple of hours in a hot kitchen sweating in front of the gas range. Some of them may just not enjoy cooking even though they have all the time in the world to rustle up delicious meals. And then there are those who are simply not good at this cooking malarkey and don’t wish to show themselves up every time they step up to the stove.

There are as many reasons to not cook as there are cuisines in this world. But there really is no reason why anyone should take pride in the fact that they can’t cook at all.

I can understand where this pride comes from though. At the most basic level, it is an announcement of privilege. Other people may need to feed themselves but not me. I have a wife/cook/expense account to keep me in three course meals complete with dessert. For women this pronouncement comes imbued with the whiff of feminism as well. After centuries of being stuck in the kitchen while the men went off and conquered the world it feels empowering to announce that you have no use for the kitchen.

But that, if you ask me, is not the same as announcing that you have no use in the kitchen. That is an entirely different matter. And one that I don’t believe anybody - man or woman - should take pride in.

I am by no means suggesting that everyone needs to sign up for Cordon Bleu lessons or even invest in a full set of Nigella Lawson cookbooks. No, you don’t need to go the full Domestic Goddess by any means.

What you should be able to do is to feed yourself more than Maggi noodles or chocolate biscuits if you are left to your own devices.

This is the point when most people will point out that there is something joyless about cooking for yourself. Why go to all that bother when the only person at the table is you?

Well, you should go to all that bother precisely because the only person at the table is you.

You deserve better than a hastily slapped together sandwich with mayonnaise and cold meat. Or a packet of crisps and a Diet Coke. Or even a wedge of cheese and some crackers. You deserve a meal that some time and effort has gone into. Because you are worth that time and effort.

Trust me on this because I speak from experience. When I was growing up I didn’t so much as venture into the kitchen because that was my mother’s domain and she didn’t welcome any interlopers. So my first experience of cooking for myself came when I moved to Delhi into a tiny little barsati with an even tinier kitchen. That’s where my cooking adventures began - with a humble dish of scrambled eggs that I ate on the terrace while breathing in the fumes of traffic. And nothing I had eaten up to that point matched that taste of freedom, independence and yes, self-care.

Since then I have graduated to rustling up Italian risottos, Thai curries and Chinese stir-fries. And yes, there are still days when I don’t want to cook. But I will never ever say again that I can’t cook. And I do take pride in that.

Domestic Goddess in a domestic…

Yes, we all feel for Nigella Lawson; but it’s time to back off and let her live her own life

Domestic Goddess. That was always how we were meant to see Nigella Lawson. Hell, she even put that helpfully in the title of her second book, How To Be A Domestic Goddess, for those of us who were too thick to get it.

And Domestic Goddess she certainly was. The voluptuous Earth Mother, cleavage quivering like the creamiest blancmange, as she bent over the stove to create one stunning treat after another. She smiled beatifically at the camera, dipped her fingers into chocolate sauce and licked them clean, rustled up amazing three-course meals for her friends in a fairy-lights bedecked living room, while her two young children, Cosima and Bruno, ran around looking absolutely adorable in the background.

Who could possibly resist? Not me. I loved her (and still do) from the moment she first hoved into view in her first TV series, Nigella Bites, cooking in her home kitchen in her London flat and making it all look so easy. By the time the second season was being filmed, though, the idyllic home life portrayed on camera was an elaborate fiction. While Nigella fried and roasted and baked and the kids romped about, her first husband, John Diamond was in the bedroom, battling the throat cancer that first took his tongue and then his life. But you could have never guessed the trauma that Nigella was going through behind the brilliance of that on-camera smile.

In that sense, Nigella was less TV cook and more accomplished fiction writer. Like the best novelists of our times, she created a perfect, rose-tinted world in which it was forever summer and drew us in with its promise of sunshine and double chocolate cake until we wanted nothing more than to be a part of it. As we watched Nigella go shopping for organic meat and vegetables, throw together a superb dinner (easy-peasy, she assured us), pour herself into a cocktail dress and greet her guests with a glass of champagne in hand, we knew that this was the life – and we wanted a part of it, if only as gawping viewers.

But the fiction served a greater purpose than mere TV ratings. The persona of the Domestic Goddess proved to be the perfect cover to hide behind as Nigella endured a third bereavement (she had already lost her mother and her sister to cancer). The second season of Nigella Bites premiered a week or so after her husband’s funeral, and watching those shows now, I can’t help but wonder if Nigella was conjuring up those images of domestic bliss on television in the hope that life may soon imitate art.

If she was, then it worked brilliantly. She found love again with art collector and former adman Charles Saatchi, and the two of them moved in together and then married to play blended families with her two kids and his only daughter, Phoebe. They have been married ten years and in this phase of her life, Nigella has gone from strength to strength (her net worth is now said to be in the range of 20 million pounds). Since her first cookbook How To Eat (the title was suggested by John Diamond) became a best-seller, she has produced nine more books, presented several TV series (Nigella Feasts, Nigella Express, Nigella Kitchen, Nigellissima) and is now going on to conquer America with a new food show, The Taste, in which she is a judge.

But if Nigella was just Superwoman – which she manifestly is – then we would just admire her; and maybe just resent her a teeny tiny bit. The reason we love her is because she is also Everywoman. She has seen loss, suffered through tragedy, wrestled with every challenge life has thrown her and emerged triumphant in the end, gorgeous smile intact.

That is the woman that all of us knew and loved. And when that picture-perfect persona was shattered before our very eyes with the publication of those pictures of Charles Saatchi’s hands around the throat of our heroine, we felt a very personal sense of betrayal. Shock was followed by outrage, and then with reams of unsolicited advice for Nigella. Get the hell out of your marriage. Dump that bully of a husband. He doesn’t deserve you. Stand up for yourself. Be a role model for other women. Don’t take this nonsense.

Yes, I know that all of us feel for Nigella Lawson right now. But let’s not forget that nobody knows how to live her life better than Nigella herself. Even if the Domestic Goddess has been turned into a Poster Girl for Domestic Violence with those photos, that is not the image that will come to define her.

If the past has taught us anything it is that Nigella Lawson is The Great Survivor. Today she may be wandering wanly around the streets of London, pale-faced and hollow-eyed, as low-life packs of paparazzi hound her every move, and the tabloids put her on Divorce Watch (her wedding ring is off! It is still off!!). But before we know it, she will be back, having re-invented herself for another stint in the sun. We just need to give her time and space to make sense of this phase of her life – and move into the next.

Have money; will spend

There’s a new disease affecting the middle-classes: it’s called affluenza

Growing up in a middle-class home, I didn’t really give much thought to money. But some things were taken for granted. Going out for a movie and dinner afterwards – even if it was just idlis and dosas in the local Udupi joint or kebabs at Kwality – was a major occasion. When we went on a picnic, the food was always home-made parathas or sandwiches. Holidays were spent with relatives to save on hotel bills. And when we felt like French fries or pakoras, they were rustled up in the kitchen by our mothers – or our cooks, if we were a little bit better off – rather than ordered in from the neighbourhood fast-food joint.

No matter how much money our parents made, they were always obsessed with putting some aside. Sometimes it was for a big purchase like a car or a home of our own. Sometimes it was for a social occasion like the wedding of the eldest daughter. Sometimes it was for the proverbial rainy day, in case everything went belly-up and we were left without a regular income. But whatever the reason, putting money away was always considered to be A Good Thing and it was something that we were encouraged to do from the time we started getting little cash presents on birthdays, Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Rakhi or Baisakhi.

Money was always better when it was tucked away somewhere safe for a day when we would really need it. And no, we did not need another pair of shoes; those school Bata shoes were just fine for a weekend trip to the shops. We did not need to splurge on cold drinks every evening in the marketplace when Mom could rustle up perfect lemonade at home for a fraction of the price. And we certainly did not need big parties thrown to celebrate our birthdays: a few friends, a shop-bought birthday cake (a special treat, you understand), some chutney and cheese sandwiches, home-made chana bhatura and you were set for the year ahead.

See, that was the time when parents – well, okay, let’s admit it, mostly moms – had the time, the energy and the inclination to play what we would now call a Domestic Goddess role. And when families actually spent time doing stuff together rather than out-sourcing all the boring bits because frankly they were too darn busy and, in any case, they could afford it – so what was the problem, exactly!

I guess it all began with the advent of double-income nuclear families when there was plenty of money to go around but not enough time. And that’s when affluenza struck: the condition in which we throw money at every situation that we don’t have the time, energy or inclination to handle on our own.

Here are some of the most common symptoms of affluenza among the cash-rich but time-poor. Let’s see on how many counts you qualify.

• You have a gardener to mow your lawn, window-cleaners who turn up every week to ensure that those glass French windows always look pristine, and a guy who comes every morning to clean your car inside out (sometimes, of course, he’s called the driver and also ferries you around all day). There’s the live-in maid who does all the cleaning, dusting, ironing, grocery-shopping. And the cook comes in every morning and evening to make a three course meal and stick it in the fridge for when you are ready to re-heat and eat.
• Your child can’t master the first principles of physics (or geometry, algebra, chemistry, insert subject of choice) no matter how hard he allegedly tries in class. And frankly, the thought of going back to muddle through middle-school text-books is too much to bear. Not to mention that you’re knackered by the time you get back from work. No problem: just bring out the cheque book and hire a private tutor.
• Both of you have high-pressure jobs that involve long hours and bringing work back home. And you have that whole competitive tiredness thing going on where each one of you acts more put upon than the other. So when you finally do get away for that long weekend without the kids, you spend more time getting massaged in the spa rather than in bed with one another.
• Your kids are home long before you are. And you don’t want them vegetating in front of the television, watching endless re-runs of Friends or worse, The Simpsons. So bring on the tennis coaching, the piano classes, the salsa sessions, horse-riding instruction, hell, even synchronised swimming will do. Try and get the little mites to learn every skill that money can buy. Keep them so busy that that they don’t have a moment to call their own until Mummy and Daddy finally stagger home. And then you can appease them by ordering in a nice, large pepperoni pizza with all the extras.

• A large house and a lovely garden just cries out for a dog, doesn’t it? Or maybe even two? But given that the entire family is out all day, either earning money or spending it, who is going to take the cute little thing out for walks and the like. Yes, you’re right – yet another member of staff, bringing up the grand total of home help to a grand four or even five.


See, that’s the thing with affluenza. It strikes when you’re not looking. And before you know it, you’ve got a full-blown case of infection to deal with.