Kitchen Tales

Beyond macaroni cheese and our weekly plate of liver and onions, I can't remember a single meal my mother cooked from scratch.

My brother and sister will have different memories perhaps, being a decade or so older and having lived with both my mother and grandmother during the 60's when cooking was still plain and simple and kitchens and family life were yet to be sabotaged by T.V dinners.

By the time I remember what was coming out of our kitchen my mother had begun a committed relationship with frozen food, and by the time my brother and sister had moved out and on with their lives it was just me, mum, and Captain Bird's Eye!

My Mother was an interesting phenomenon, overbearingly smothering in a non-participatory way. I did as I wanted when I wanted. No boundaries.

But, she was always there, wanting love and wanting to give love but never being able to break down the walls of her own stifled childhood to fully achieve it.

My sister will understand what I mean, it's one of the bonds of our relationship. We were damaged in ways our Mother would never be able to understand by her emotional absence in our lives. The battle rages on in our lives, at a time when she has been able to find a certain amount of peace and the ability to give love more freely.

For my sister and I giving love has never really been the problem, the pain of being raised by someone emotionally stunted has manifested itself in other ways... I am grateful at least that it made us both determined to be better parents and gave us the thread that links us both, immovably no matter how far apart we are.

And so for me, cooking is a form of expression. I love to cook for the people I love, and the people I love know it. When love has been the elemental factor in producing a meal it tastes different, affects the senses differently. Becomes part of the patchwork of memories that we look back on with fondness.

I am an emotional cook, nothing makes me happier than seeing the people I love gathered around a meal of my making. Sometimes, I'm constrained by finances or produce availability... sometimes both. But that just makes the challenge sweeter.

The simplest meals can be created with love, and love is everything.

Sometimes we love people who can't or won't love us back. But it's quite often the love that we give out that's the most fulfilling.

SODA BREAD

(made with love)

450g all-purpose flour

1tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp. salt

300ml buttermilk (or half and half each of milk and natural yogurt mixed)

There's literally no bread easy than soda bread.

Go and preheat your oven to Gas mark 6 or the equivalent

And then all you're required to do is add the wet ingredients to the dry with about 5 or 6 extra tablespoons of tepid water to bring it all together into a soft, shaggy dough.

Turn it onto a floured surface and gently encourage it into a nice round heap about 7 inches in diameter.

Place it on a lightly oiled baking sheet and make a deep cross on the top of your loaf and slide gracefully into your preheated oven.

Bake for approximately 40 to 45 minutes, when she's ready she'll be gloriously golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

Oh and don't wait. Warm with LOTS of butter and honey and family or friends is the best way to tackle this beast...