Last night I was told I had an “old-fashioned approach” to cooking. Not in a bad way, nor specifically in a good way. Just “old-fashioned”. Now let me quickly point out – I am not a chef. At best I can pass as a short-order cook, a la Odd Thomas, written by Dean Koontz. Except, unlike Odd Thomas, I do not see dead people…

Anyway, about this “old-fashioned” approach. I often look at what’s in the cupboard, and say to myself “What can I cook from this that doesn’t involve leaving the house?” Those days are often surprising rice, frankly astonishing rice, and my nefarious three and a half cheese pasta. All very tasty, and relatively healthy, if you overlook the three and a half cheeses…

Other days, I go out and so a shop. People look at me in astonishment when I point out that the food budget for three of us can be as little as £20 a week. How do I manage this? There is nothing simpler. I walk round the shop, and add things until I get to £20, and then I stop. If I over shoot, I remove more expensive things, and replace with cheaper. Again, pretty simple stuff.

which takes us back to cooking after the fact. As I stated, I’m not a chef. My mother always used to say to me “You’re not bad-tempered enough to be a chef”, and it’s a boy’s absolute prerogative to believe such statements. My range swings more towards the home-cooked meal, with trimmings. You could tell that I’m home-schooled, and then polished in a cafe.  Last night, I managed a pretty passable bangers and mash. Or, to be more accurate, Sausages, in a mushroom and leek gravy, with mashed potatoes. Just a bit of fine old-school cooking. Proper gravy too, made with browning and thickener.

You may have noticed the pointed lack of onions in said recipe. I have fallen out with onions, on a semipermanent basis. I now replace them with leeks across the board. Tell you what though, a leek gravy is a hell of a lot nicer than an onion one. Wish I’d discovered it years ago. Other than that, my repertoire extends beyond to a variety of stirfrys, bologneses, carbonara, stroganoff, cottage pie, and occasional dabblings into the field of other piecraft.

I don’t make pastry, because who’s got time for that? Sometimes I have been known to attempt food porn, but it more often comes out like something from an eighteenth-century banned manuscript. Certainly less porn, and more kink…

Cooking is relaxation for me more than anything else now. At the points where I’ve been most stressed in my life, cooking has been something to lose myself into, and not care about the world. There is a catharsis in cookery – a way to throw myself into something and wind down after work. The thought processes encourage calm – this goes here now. This does this now. This is nearly ready. Turn that down. There is a rhythm to it all that makes my feet tap. I actually struggle now to cook without some music blaring. Something with a beat to make me thump round the kitchen. And woe betide anyone who gets in my way.

And lastly, for you all, a song…