My friend Dan is hugely irritated by people on the internet posting “Pictures of their dinner” he doesn’t “want to know about their bloody lunch what’s the point?”
Marco who used to work with my Partner photographed every dinner he ate. Every meal. It would come to the table or counter and he would take a picture before tucking in. I don’t know if they are all on the internet somewhere arranged thematically by quality, key ingredients or even geographical location. If I am honest I don’t know if he documented domestic meals, or having not stalked him if he really photographed every meal. I am told he did.
We have I think lost track of Marco but if we had not it would be tempting to plan for Dan and Marco to meet.
I have increasingly come to believe the measure of success in any human endeavour is if one of the outcomes that we get to sit in comfort and safety while eating and drinking with friends. World peace and ending child poverty are all well and good but what are they for? How do you measure they have worked? I think time to eat and talk are a pretty good measure.
Food is a need and not a want. It is fundamental, without it we die. We should try and do the bare necessities as well as possible, if we can make a good job of the things we must do it is a solid foundation for all the stuff we just fancy trying. We should eat properly not because it is a virtue but because it’s like putting the wrong fuel in a car. It will bugger up the engine. Not perhaps as dramatically (though the effect of some Mediterranean shellfish on my system it pretty spectacular) but it will trash it. I am by the accounts of those who know me a foodie. I like to cook and I think people often enjoy what I make the eat it. I am excited by markets and ingredients.We cook in our house and we create recipes from scratch and like to share the food. My memory is often fragmented and fragile about what I have cooked. If asked can I have the recipe for that? I can list ingredients and general processes and will be quite precise about which order things should happen in for a day or so but then the details drift and to make it again I have to work my way up form first principles. The thing I really can’t remember is quantities, and I can be more than a bit fuzzy about timings. My standard measures are “a bit” “some” “quite a bit” and “lots” and things get cooked until are ready.