It's terribly difficult cooking for one. I've spoken to many people about this challenge, hoping to acquire some tricks that'll make it easier. I adore food. I adore cooking. But I also adore the rituals and traditions that accompany consuming a meal or even a tea time treat.
When I'm home in Cape Town during the summer months, meals are consumed at our kitchen table. The wooden table itself seems to grow lengthways to accommodate bread boards laden with ciabatta, challah, and croissants, cheese boards boasting camembert, Simonsberg cream cheese and rounds of Saint Andre, tubs of hummus (butternut hummus, beetroot hummus, sundried tomato hummus), cold rotisserie chicken, "no leaf" salads parading broccolini, french beans, raw zucchini ribbons, bejeweled with dried cranberries and toasted pecan nuts, and countless desserts (Nigella's chocolate/raspberry torte, Mum's melktert, sister K's vanilla malt ice cream). As impressive as the spread is, my family's excitement for tastes, colours, textures, conversation and these congregations is even more extraordinary. And I am incredibly lucky to have grown up witnessing such love and passion, summer after summer.
Cape Town in the winter months is far quieter. We generally don't have visiting cousins, aunts and uncles, so mealtimes are enjoyed by my immediate family. There is usually a big pot of soup (Moroccan Chickpea, or Green Pea, or Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato), grated gruyere cheese or slices of veal sausages (depending on the choice of soup), homemade lamb burgers (with the necessary condiments-ketchup mayonnaise, onion marmalade, slices of avocado, etc.) and something green. These winter table rituals are slightly quieter but no less satisfying.
So you can understand that it is an adjustment every time I return to New York from a stint in South Africa. I suddenly find myself alone, in my flat, sans a proper table never mind the guests to adorn it. I'm not feeling sorry for myself-I simply adore my own space. But, it's tricky going from so much choice and sensory assault to being restrained and responsible. The trend I've established so far is to make a big batch of rice or quinoa or farro (basically, a grain of some sort) at the beginning of the week, and to add different vegetables and legumes to it throughout the week. It may sound basic and uninventive, but it's satisfying and because grains are so neutral, it's like having a blank canvas and an endless choice of colours. Here is a picture of today's lunch.
I used a mix (home-mixed) of red rice, wild rice and brown basmati rice. For the "something green", I added steamed broccolini and french beans (slightly smaller and thinner than normal beans), and wilted spinach (it's the easiest way to incorporate green veg into your meals-have a big bag of baby spinach in the fridge and throw in a handful any time you need a pop of green). I fried some celery and mushrooms (mixed pack of oyster, shiitake and brown) in zahtar and paprika (you could add turmeric, cumin, coriander, a mix of all three-basically any spices to up the flavour game) and added some brown lentils. Mix it all together and voila-rice bowl. Now you all know what I generally eat, day to day, and you have a visual too....I feel very vulnerable.
Since I'm "putting it all out there," I shall also reveal that I ate a blood orange earlier this morning. Blood oranges must have the most intoxicatingly gorgeous colour, which makes devouring them so much more thrilling. I leave you with a snap of the "giver of joy."
R.I.P. Giver of Joy
1st Feb 2011 to 2nd Feb 2011
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