I’ve been moaning about the fact that I cannot cook for countless years.
People have attempted to teach me — Polly and Moe both made good progress and showed me essential skills like how to chop garlic.
I picked up occasional tricks but until this summer managed to poke along just fine with a limited repertoire of four or five simple things. The rest of the time we ate out. Given the fact that we did not know how to prepare food, it was less stressful to pay $2.85 for a bowl of pho. Or $2.50 for a burrito. Or $1.50 for a tofu sandwich with pickled vegetables and fresh cilantro.
England has a terrible reputation when it comes to food. While I reserved judgment at first, I can now say with some certainty that the stereotype is true. Most restaurant food is mediocre at best, and it is all terribly expensive. The good restaurants are exorbitant – or in London. I’ve had what people swear is the best of this-or-that variety of food and it just doesn’t rate.
But the cost of food in general is actually quite low, even after I mentally calculate the exchange rate, and all stores have an abundance of organic options. I can buy high quality non-GMO food for a fraction of what I used to spend in Seattle, and I don’t have to drive for an hour to find it. Just one example: a half pound of fresh organic butter costs 90p at the local grocer. The same item would have been $4.00 (or more) in Seattle, if I could get it at all without a vast commitment of time.
However, though staples are cheap, many items I relied on back home are not available. How can a person survive without a daily dose of fresh salsa? I don’t need the corn chips – forget the tortillas – I just want the sauce! So, inevitably, it happened.
I have started to cook. Pico de gallo was the first and most essential thing to learn. Then an assortment of rice and veggie dishes. Then salmon, and chicken, and eventually a soup involving carrots and coriander. I can make apple crumble, and cookies, and chopped up a chocolate bar for chips when the stores did not have what I needed.
I bought a basil plant for the window sill.
Several years ago Stella gave me The Joy of Cooking and I have mostly read it for enjoyment. Now I am using it like a map to sort out what to learn next.