Eat, Drink and Be Mary!

The above title is the answer to the old Christmas cracker joke, 'What does Jesus's mother do at Christmas?'

But food is something that divides people. Some see it as fuel to power the body, while others see it as something to relish (forgive the pun). For me it's a mixture of the two.

I like to keep fit, so I do watch what I eat, and how much, but I do also love good food. Because of my heritage I tend to favour Italian food as that's what I was fed as a child, but I love to try foods from all over the world. Having said this, things like spag bog and lasagne, along with foods from other cultures such as curries and Chinese food are now a big part of the staple diet of people here in Britain. I put my foods into three categories, which are based only on my taste and preference, nothing else.

The first category is the foods I avoid at all cost. I have argued many times in the past that there is no such thing as good and evil. People do appalling things and people do good things but they do them all for a reason, not because they are good or bad. But having said this, my argument falls apart when confronted with pickled onion flavoured monster munches. EVIL!, EVIL!, EVIL! There can be no other description for this vile piece of manufactured fat and E numbers. 

I don't like vinegar and I'm not keen on most sea foods, although I do eat some. The main sea foods that have me squirming are mussels and octopus. Mussels look like something a gynaecologist would have to remove from some poor unfortunate woman. Octopus is a thing of nightmares for me when it comes to food. My Grandmother, whom I have spoken about before, was a little Italian lady whom I adored and happened to be, for me, one of the best cooks that ever lived. I would return from school some days and she would have obtained some octopus (polpo) from who knows where, as 'sixties Huddersfield was not exactly awash with it at the time. She would be cleaning the hood of it out in the sink, then she would chop up the tentacles with a look on her face of a child receiving an ice cream. The thought of this sight still fills me with dread. Octopus are beautiful creatures while swimming in the sea, but not on the dinner plate.

The food I love is Pasht, an Italian peasant soup which was our staple diet as kids. There was always a pan on the boil in the kitchen. The soup seemed to be self filling, as the level in the pan never seemed to drop. Our family eat this now when we are ill, it is the only thing we crave: it's our snuggle blanket. I also love most of the dishes I grew up with, many of them bean dishes (not the baked type). But I also love a good curry and lots of Chinese food. 

But strangely, one of my favourite treats is one of the simplest. When little Harleigh stays on a Sunday night, we go to bed to read her favourite books and Nonna Carol makes us both a cup of green tea with honey and a couple of rounds of toast. This is one of my greatest pleasures in life.

I love cooking. It is my way of relaxing,  and I use lots of authentic recipes which I have acquired from people from all over the world, and have also created lots of my own. When I was a child I used to stand in the kitchen with my Gran and help her cook, while she chatted away about when she was young and the 'old country'. I developed a great love for making fresh food and my son used to stand with me and help me cook: he in turn has done the same with his daughter. And that is the reason for this blog.

The other day my son's partner had to go somewhere and little Harleigh and myself found ourselves with an afternoon together. I asked her if she wanted to go out somewhere to which she said, “no Babo, we bake buns!” We didn't have the time or the ingredients for this so I offered to cook one of her favourite meals with her, Chinese soft noodles. She declined, then asked me if we could make something that falls into my third category, 'cosi, cosi?' This just means 'so, so'. These are foods that I don't either love or dislike, I can take or leave them. Foods such as pizza, risotto, paella, lasagne, spag bog and many more. I eat them, but if I didn't ever see them again I wouldn't be bothered. 

My son loved to make pizza with me when he was young, and he also loved fried rice. Harleigh loves rice dishes but then, like her mother, she eats lots of Caribbean food. But the other day Harleigh asked, “We make pancakes Babo?” The last time I made or ate pancake was when my son, who is now nearly thirty, was only nine or ten. I don't see the point of them. But because I think that eating and cooking with children is an important part of their development I agreed.

We got out a baking bowl and put in the milk, flour and eggs and both Harleigh and I took turns to whisk the batter. I then cooked them with Harleigh helping me to toss them. I then dressed one with honey only and the other with a mixture of lemon and honey. I put them on a plate on the dining table. Because I'm not that bothered about them I only made two pancakes and told Harleigh to dig in while I washed up the pan etc. I told her I would be in in a minute to share the food with her. She is only a tiny little thing and usually only picks at her food, preferring to eat things separately rather than mixing her food. So can you imagine my surprise when she walked into the kitchen with an empty plate in her hands and in true Dickensian style asked, “More, Babo please?!” I was shocked that she had eaten so much in one sitting. So I told her that it might be best if she let the food settle first. Sure enough her stomach was full, as ten minutes later she fell into a deep satisfied sleep. When her Mum picked her up the first thing she asked was, “Can I come tomorrow and make pancake with Babo?”

This morning I have received a text from Kim asking if Harleigh can come for a while today, as she has done nothing but talked about pancakes all night? So today we shall be making mostly pancakes and I might have to revise my favourite food list and take pancakes out of "so, so " and put them in my favourite foods (Although I still won't be eating many of them!)