This hot weather is taking its toll.
I am at the best of times lethargic, at worst down right lazy as a domestic animal. After he took early retirement from July 2002 he did all the cooking (he had done most of it as his afterwork therapy, along with a glass of wine or gin …) and shopping until cancer and his chemo and then failing health prevented him from doing so.
Now I ask myself as I shop even just for one, does it really take that long and cost that much to buy bugger all? A lot of it is fresh food and where possible I will buy organic in preference which bumps up the price, and I aim to eat my 5 a day, but really, no wonder health fresh food is not seen as an option for some.
Anyway, last weekend I made one of Laing's signature dishes, gazpacho. A delight for a summer's day. I knew the recipe he sort of followed. He was very good at taking a recipe and then changing it out of all recognition as well as being an instinctive blender of flavours, though he did take note of my criticism if I thought one element was too forward or was lacking, especially when he made something for the first time. When I tasted the gazpacho, it was wrong. It wasn't lacking anything in balance. It was simply underwhelming. I handmade enough for two days and dreaded my Sunday meal as it approached. Time to extract the dreaded gazpacho and expose it to the air.
To my utter surprise it was excellent. Not as good as the master's poorest effort, but for a first attempt I as pretty chuffed. Then it hit me what the difference was and why it happened. I knew Laing would make the gazpacho well before I came home. We usually would eat about 7, allowing me time to unwind from the rigours of work, the Central Line, fellow commuters, et cetera. I had made my effort and chilled it fast in the freezer. It hadn't time to rest.
I was also reminded at this point of a story he told me his mother told him. A beggar turned up on the doorstep asking for some food. She asked him if he liked "second day's" (an expression I as a mere soft southern Sassenach had never heard before). The beggar replied "Oh, yes Missus!" to which the response was, "Well you had better come back tomorrow, there's none today!"
Today I have made my gazpacho earlier than last time and I have also attempted my own croutons. They will be OK, but I honestly think one needs staler bread than I used.
So to all the Johnnies out there missing their Fannies (and that dates me as well as the puerile humour), give it a whirl. It's better than prick-and-ping from Waitrose or M&S, no matter how good it is.
