Food.

So, being a Nigella-wannabe ever since viewing her Nigella Bites & Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef on live TV for the first time in 2001-ish, and fishing to get the Domestic Goddess in kinokuniya, & someone gave me a copy of her Forever Summer, i have been hooked on food tv.

Risotto, En Bianco

Today, i gather all my wits about me - for not only a proper Sunday meal, but actually for the rather moorish habit of being a midnight snacker (a ritual a shared with my 6-yr old when we sneak in some sneaky mushy soy-eggs-asian-version of the oeufs en cocotte, in the middle of the night). I had on occasion also stumbled in after late nights - or really early wakings for a really late supper / really early brekkie. That thing i do with eggs, are phenom - and always a real lifesaver.

Eggs omelette (in an English Brekkie)

Nowadays, i tune into my hunger more than the time - without the frenzy that happens in the mornings as well as night-time-before-bedtime traffic. This makes for fast (when there are others to feed), versus thoughtfully yummy (when it’s just me & another i feed). Not to say that i didn’t make really great meals earlier, and busted a lifetime of tools doing it - but there is something to be said about having a very chill and to my more adult repertoire.

Pepper! &

Salt (condiment-o)

Things involving more wine, cream, less frantic frying, and less hearty stews. I rarely eat rice, unless i ate out either. I have what i would like to call a more Spanish fiesta-hour-tapas bravas - where i can soak in the quiet relish of the food i made, rather than my arms in a soapy dishwater until i need to cook again in the next 3 hours. (Mostly a real downside to the no-dishwasher-sitch in the places i live.)

Eggs / Oeufs en Cocotte

I realise the way i cook is influenced by the gypsy-ness of our moving lease-to-lease, or what i call the condominium-hoppers’ handicap of buying and selling furniture, and things you can’t afford to move - or store - and things into boxes from country to country, or as you actually properly settle in. There is after a while, a tension in your neck that makes you want to make life a little easier.

Risotto, Red

Making a moving app - where all your contacts / (landlord agents, handymen to hang your paintings, moving people, cleaners, grocery, butchers, technical TV subscription people, milk & newsagent deliveries, etc) per place / region would be handy whether you had previously lived without needing to be tracked, or just in need of a familiar company to know your needs as clearly.

(That is, the keyword here being handy.)

Bleu & Buttered Pasta

We need a faster way we can obtain a space in any place like, yesterday. Short-term live-a-board places, are obtained in aribnb’s as well as condotel/ type of services to the accommodations that are more for executives needing places just for the night, and have organised themselves prior to leaving. But the occasional land-ins - where you only ever close that lease after staying in a serviced apartment for a week, and are provided a look-see, would always need something to ease them into their new lives, and having the confusion sorted out for them, so they could settle in without a hitch.

Po-Taters, Hacked-a-Poutine

Ergo, FOOD places are a considerable tick in every person’s choice of area to stay in. I would assume, no one cooks anymore - but it is the tedium of having to cook indoors in your kitchen, and having to clean up afterwards, that actually creates the hesitation to attaining more fastidious lengthy prep culinary feasts.

Fish & Pie

As someone who has been doing this since yonks, I tend to dabble. To a faulty fault. I think i have been mocked behind my back to be the kitchen whammy mammy, where i tend to get all fussy with serving people food - i don’t hear them complaining, just really mussed. I am a bit of a space-needy one - which means i need more storage than actual flurry.

I am fast.

Bread & Chicken Tarragon Pasta

But, not compromising on the taste tradition meets actual food - i compromise in areas of process, that possible over pre-planning might normally kill, but in a last-minute balance, i think i absolutely am able to rustle up a dinner with the remains of tiny apartment-sized daily larder, than i ever had. Do i thrive on limitation - time, and space - not to mention the tiny prep tables and modern stove top, i think makes me a tiny bit more excited every time i actually conjure tiny plate, into something more exciting than the last.

Tarragon Mushroom Lasagna

(THIS is definitely my favourite)…

What accounts for the change? I think it is the minute inspiration that the food historically had put me on a path of green-eats: from buying only what i can consume, and a strict no-leftover policy. When something has stayed in the fridge for past one to two days, it is considered a non-repeat, and toss away candidate, and for the next round reduced into a much tinier portion.

Eggs en Cocotte, on a Good Grey Day

The easy way out is obviously to go to the very posh cafes surrounding the area - as my son living in the school he is boarding in now miles away in middle school to high school transitioning - he was in british school Year 8, now moved to a European Grade 7, to adjust to the credits that are not at parity with every system adjust. It is a way of life - being road warriors now, considering the mobility factors of economical need versus its actual reality in infrastructure.

Brownies for Dessert, A La Mode

Viably, we comply with the crunch in economising - my way is always from the Domestic end - if it is more convenient to maintain everyone from a takeaway perspective, it must be a real inconvenience to actually prepare a meal when we realise that having what we want (in no small plates) will end in an actually satisfying end (to no smaller palate).

Reviewing the pluses and minuses of life, i still think that my son still has his Midnight Snack - but eventually we are cured of bouts of insomnia with the roundabouts and episodes of mobility where we can settle in timezones, but not as speedily in adjusting the need for nourishment as, and when.

& At Last, Coffee.