Pumpkin and Cashew nut Soup

Thursday 7.40pm

There is a chill in the air telling me that although I cannot see it on this bright fresh day, winter is still here. Time for another creamy, comforting soup once again making good use of the warming fragrance of black pepper.

- An onion and a clove of garlic are set to cook slowly in some olive oil.
- About two ounces of roasted cashew nut are put into a small ziplock bag and bashed with a rolling pin to a lumpy flour. I used my youngest for this as it is the school holidays and he was looking bored. (he did the bashing that is, I didn’t use him as the rolling pin)
- Pop the nuts into a small amount of stock and left to soak.
- Meanwhile I have peeled a three or four inch piece of pumpkin and chopped it into chunks.
- Now the last time I made soup I burnt the onions when I added the pumpkin and upped the heat, so this time I scooped out the onions, put the pumpkin in, stirred it around a bit until blackened at the edges.
- The onions go back in along with a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock and the heat turned down to a simmer.
- Twenty minutes later all is cooked.
- Into the liquidiser go the cashews and their stock to whizz them a bit finer then the soup is added and blended together.
- Back into the cleaned saucepan it all goes with a little bit of salt and lots of black pepper to warm through.

This will be my lunch tomorrow at work, a small quiet oasis in what will probably be a hectic day.

Zen and the art of Cookery

Thursday 8pm

I have just been making packed lunches for myself and smallest child. Cheese sandwich for myself, cheese and ritz crackers for youngest. And whilst doing so I was munching upon some biscuits, Squiggles, that I came upon in the larder. And being a tidy soul (or fat pig if you prefer), once I had finished I scraped up all the left over bits of cheese from the counter top and stuffed them into my mouth along with the biscuits.

And the tastes went together beautifully. So beautifully in fact that I got some more and forced Nicola to try them. And she agreed with me, unless that is she was just humouring the mad man to get away, but I don’t think so.

And in that instant I realised what cookery is all about. It is the blending of flavours, textures and colours to make something nice. The rest of it, all those methods and rules are just ways to create new combinations without poisoning us. And cookery books of course are just lists of flavour combinations that people have discovered over the years.

Just for fun I think I will write a cookery book, because if it is all just painting with different tastes then we can all do it, can’t we ?

Reality

Tuesday 3am

Nothing seems real. I am sitting in a rented house on the other side of the world from home, surrounded by unfamiliar things, living out of a suitcase really. My sleeping patterns are all mixed up - here I am awake at three in the morning, my head bunged up, hayfever I think, but feeling like I am not quite here, not quite anywhere really. A ghost.

This was an unexpected trip, arranged at short notice due to my fathers death. His illness and death came upon us quite quickly really, not unexpectedly as I have said, but the quickness of his going into hospital, his slight recovery and then rapid decline and death all seemed to happen quicker than I could respond to. The funeral of course was arranged and over in a few days and again this made it almost impossible to be here even if we could have afforded the trip. I should have been here of course and would have liked to have been, but did not realise this until afterwards. Moving so far away from home I knew something like this was bound to happen eventually and I think I really said goodbye to him two and a half years ago when we left.

So now we are all gathered to scatter Eric’s ashes and say goodbye, and I feel detached from it all, like arriving during a film, not quite sure who is who or what the plot is.