Summer Stew

Cook once, eat many times & crying everywhere

Last week the heat in the kitchen was such that my large jar of coconut oil was consistently liquid, morning and afternoon. I googled (without AI) and the temperature at which coconut oil becomes liquid is 76F, this was the temperature of my south facing, black barn inhabiting kitchen before even a light was turned on. Consequently, it was a week of general reluctance to generate any additional heat, be it from the ovens, hobs, fryer or dishwasher (industrial ones run at over 80 degrees and let out great clouds of steam each time you open the door). I was grateful to have just the one job to attend to, allowing me to work one short morning and then a longer afternoon the following day, into the evening to serve, clear away and head home. More on the flip side of only having the one job below, in the meantime…

Talking of home, I managed our week night suppers well by making a ratatouille like dish on the first night, starting with a red onion which I softened and rendered golden in olive oil with a little crushed garlic, to this I added sliced aubergine and more oil (such a sponge for oil is aubergine!) which I fried until coloured and soft, then two chopped up courgettes went in to sweat for just a minute before adding a tin of chopped tomatoes - I do not enjoy over cooked watery courgettes in dishes with other vegetables. I love a Greek style courgette ‘mush’ of very well done slices, cooked long in lots of oil with garlic and lemon and seasoned well with salt and pepper. But in things like ratatouille I prefer them to hold themselves together a little more. At the same time as the tomatoes I added a jar of Bold Bean queen chickpeas - these are such a creamy delight, miles better than any chickpea gained from a tin and well worth the extra money if you have it to spend. This cooked together for about 15 minutes before I finished the dish just before serving with some cashew, basil, parsley and coriander pesto I had made for a job the week before, although it would have been fine without.

We enjoyed this served hot on the first night with a salad of sliced mange toute, leaves and some olives and sliced red peppers from jars. We also had some wedges of feta, that melted a little into the ratatouille in a very pleasing manner (pictured). Night two the ratatouille was served cold with some hot prawns fried in a little butter and garlic, alongside a salad of leaves, asparagus, cucumber and chicory for which I made a dressing with the remains of the feta from the night before mashed together with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, some olive oil, cider vinegar and lots of chopped parsley and coriander (also pictured). What was left of the ratatouille served as a base for my packed lunches for the next two days, once with boiled eggs, next with tuna.

A reminder that my Making Summer Simple booklet of 17 recipes for salads is available as a free download on last weeks news, find it here. This went out to paid subscribers as an A5 booklet, become a paid subscriber and I shall send you one in the post.

At the moment I am crying a lot. I cry in the car, at work, in the shower, in shops. My tears are most often spontaneous and unexpected. They explode out, sometimes violently, they tend to be short lived - not dissimilar in fact, to the daily episode of projectile vomiting I experienced through both of my pregnancies. There is also a similar feeling of newness in my hormonal condition (as I continue to straddle the magical horse ride that is the journey from peri into full menopause), a familiarity with the overwhelm I experienced at the beginning of pregnancy - a new moment, a new chapter, a new ride of intensity.

All of these feelings are further complicated by the imminent return of our daughter who has spent the last two years and 6 weeks living in Australia – they are coming home on Thursday for a 3 week long visit. We have not seen them in 2 years. TWO YEARS! Their leaving triggered a lot of PTSD related stuff for me connected with things I have yet to fully process regarding their cancer treatment, I wrote about it here. While I am thrilled at their fast approaching return, I am scared stupid at the prospect of them then leaving once more and of perhaps finding myself falling a little to pieces all over again. But as ever thoughts of food and feeding are scooping me up. I am about to make a big vat of Bolognese, their last meal before flying out and a long time favourite. I shall portion it out and freeze it, giving me some evenings when I can simply spend time with them rather than cook, although I am greatly looking forward to cooking while they potter about in their room, perhaps with a friend or two. We’ve so missed the noisy chaos that is first signalled by a big tangle of shoes in the hall when we get in, a sign that Noa is home with some of their gang.

423 people opened and perhaps read my last newsletter, the one with the free recipe PDF. Despite this excellent open rate it gained 3 likes and no comments or re-shares. I try very hard not to focus on numbers, but now that they have so many ways to measure performance on here and with the aforementioned volatility of hormones, I find it very hard not to feel a little gutted by the lack of engagement. Nonetheless, here I am again, talking into the void. Likes, shares and comments most welcome, thank you.

Thought of the week….. Where is the wisdom in commodifying intelligence? We no longer need to develop and hone our thinking, processing, decision making, planning, or strategising skills because apparently we can pay AI to do all this for us. But how will future humans form an appropriate question to gain the knowledge they require? Will we not just reach a stage where humans can no longer form coherent sentences and the AI that learnt from an older generation who mostly could, won’t be able to understand what a future illiterate human is asking? Also, what about dementia? Current medical research tells us that in order to hold back the inevitable decay of our brain cells we must use them. Will the massively growing ageing population get another boost in say 15 years by millions of frequent AI users becoming incapable of living independently because their brains have been rendered useless through non use? Answers in the comments please….

In this era of AI (imagine a country, like Japan, where government restricts its use. Imagine a government, like nowhere I have heard of, actively researching environmentally gentle ways to generate the energy it needs) I am very grateful that my son is a brick layer. He loves his work and has plenty of it and is not in any imminent danger of being taken over by a robot (yet). It’s hard manual labour. Standard day rate, excluding materials, is anywhere upwards of £2-3-400 a day and more. I don’t know exactly what my son earns as a basic day rate, it’s not my information to share regardless. But I do know that he earns more than me.

Cooking is hard manual labour. I don’t charge a day rate, I charge by the job. And this increasingly seems absurd to me. I have implemented a minimum price I will work for, because catering say a lunch for 6 at £20 a head is just not economically viable if that is the only job of the day. But I think I need to put this further into action because times are getting leaner and this is not a joke. It’s hard to work out the maths in a way that wouldn’t make me prohibitively expensive for many - again thoughts in the comments most welcome. I have never used a caterer myself, and so in truth my understanding of how the industry works is fairly limited (she says on a public platform, 12 years in) beyond the standard practice of charging per head. Have you been asked for a minimum flat fee from a caterer? Before the cost of the job has been discussed?

A possible hopeful aspect of AI and the gobbling up of paid work that it is doing is that it might, perhaps, usher in a universal basic income…and this nonsense where cleaners earn a fraction of the income that say a celebrity generates can be levelled. Ha ha. But I live in hope.

In the meantime I believe very much in supporting independent businesses as much as possible and this extends to paid subscriptions. I support 4 individuals and 2 small political groups with subs of no more than £6 each a month. For this I gain various things in return, but mostly I do it because I think that what the individuals are doing has value and I enjoy it and I want them to be able to continue and indeed to do more. If I could build my own paid subscriber number from 40 to 100 it would make a massive difference to the day to day pressures that my business faces. Most of the time I think ‘don’t be ridiculous, if you can’t generate the income you need then you must go and find alternative work’ but I do generate the income I need, frankly a flipping amazing achievement considering the rent we pay to keep a roof over our heads, what I would dearly love is to not have to worry, all the bloody time, about my ability to do so. “Cancel those subscriptions you have” I hear some say, but then that would be hypocritical, I am a big believer in putting my money where my mouth is. Substack has gained a growing reputation for being a place where people can come on, publish some writing and generate income, this has caused it to be flooded of late with new users. This makes it a less chat happy gentle space to inhabit, it’s also caused algorithmic number chasing changes as mentioned above, that frankly do in my brain. I wonder what the statistics are for AI generated paid newsletters on here? I am sure that they are higher in number than any of us might like to think.

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber, thanks always to those who are, plus you get my Fanzine and self published recipe booklets through the post and occasional discounts on workshops, events and products. It’s a proper bargain at £5 a month or £50 for the year.

While I am on supporting things we love, my hugely talented friend Laura Mugridge, actor, workshop leader, writer (Laura wrote the things that make me happy piece in Issue 2 of Hope’s Kitchen the Fanzine) and creator of the gorgeous and funny Inside the Lines podcast along with her friend Paul - an audio sitcom about a pair of friends who run a colouring in shop in Brighton. I have shared it on here before because it is a delight in soothing comedy. They are currently running an extremely modest Crowdfunder to enable them to make a second series, please support them here if you can. Have a listen to series one here if you need to be inspired to pledge some cash. Glasses of milk and party rings for all!

Thanks always for reading, this does feel particularly indulgent but as mentioned last week my need to people please is falling away as I shed my young woman hormones and enter the era of the crone.

With love,

Chloe x