Open Writing

Dear Del,

We are now at the stage of our packing when I am required to become creative with my cooking, because the pantry needs to be cleared of as much food as possible.

As you know, for much of my life I have been used to living quite a long way from the nearest supply of groceries. As a result I have never been able to rid myself of having enough food in the pantry to feed a dozen hungry shearers should they decide to turn up unexpectedly.

I’m not an enthusiastic cook and although I have seen some of the many cookery programmes on the television, I usually avoid watching someone else doing what I have been doing reasonably successfully for the past forty six years since our marriage. It isn’t what I consider entertainment.

I haven’t as yet stretched my imagination to the heights of that famous cook in The Vicar Of Dibley who enjoyed trying new and unusual flavours such as sardines and ice-cream, nor have I iced my chocolate cakes with a vegetable extract such as Marmite.

On the other hand, I am most unlikely to become like the English cook who seems to try and make cooking positively sexy. As soon as I hear her husky voice dripping with anticipation over some incredibly rich piece of confection she has produced, I rush for the remote.

I live in fear of the day when it all becomes too much for her and she actually sinks into a bath of rich dark chocolate to relieve the ecstasy she has experienced while producing something of excruciatingly high calorie content.

Yes, I know, I’m jealous and I fear for Teddy’s health if she should take the dreaded plunge when he is watching.

Our pantry does have a wide variety of food in it, but somehow it takes quite a deal of thinking to make a meal which not only uses up the contents that haven’t passed their used by date, but will have a satisfactory taste as well.

In the dark recesses behind the things we use regularly, I have found all the food purchased during various austerity drives or in case of WW3. Somewhere in my ancestral genes I must still have a need to collect sustanence in case we are forced to live for a long period on a staple diet. There is sago, flour, rice, long life milk, powdered milk, noodles and pasta and tins of this and that which ‘which might come in handy for something’. Who knows what I thought they would be handy for at the time.

The birds have done quite well this week. They have feasted on biscotti biscuits (well out of date), profiterole cases (which had become lost behind the dried fruits), and wheat bran, again well out of date.

The compost bins have also been emptied and their well rotted contents spread under the fruit trees. The black birds couldn’t believe their luck when the worm farm was emptied and washed out.

Teddy felt quite mean exposing so many of our hard working worms to them, but the chain of life goes on.

Today I am filling tiny pastry cases, not too far out of date, with a mixture of fishy things and rice. I guess that isn’t the way the sexy cook would describe it. Under her hand they would be transformed into tiny mouthfuls of lip smacking snacks fit for Caesar to lie back on his couch and drool over.

Teddy isn’t Caesar and he never lounges on the couch. It isn’t a habit I want to see him begin. He tells me, Yon Cassius had a lean and hungry look, so perhaps she is cooking with him in mind.

Yesterday I made something with chicken, rice and coconut milk. It was quite tasty and could even become exotic if I can remember how I made it the next time I want to throw it all together while I waft about the kitchen murmuring lovingly to it and licking my fingers and lips in a positively seductive way.

She has the art of puckering up to a spoon which seems to turn some men into whipped cream at the sight.

That last bit I have to perfect, it never has been my style at all.

Time for our lunch Del.

Now what will we have? I saw a can of tuna which may become something special. I even have the bean sprouts and lentils to add to it. Just like the good old days Del.

I wish I hadn’t packed so many of my cookery books so early.

From you’re ‘flower child friend’,

Cynthia.