I understand that there is a growing trend in cooking programmes on television, but does this mean that more of us cook from ‘scratch’ ingredients or are we just passively observing the ‘experts’ and so cooking has become entertainment.
Do you cook?
I occasionally cook-rarely. I am going to make bread this week-sometimes I plan something like that or to make a pudding. I am making cyanotypes at the moment and the process is chemical-but really very similar to cooking and I do get bored with it. I admire people that can cook.
Sometimes if I have a fantasy it will be to imagine cooking all the time lots of cakes and looking after babies-this is obviously a desire for nurturing I have denied in myself and probably will for a while.
I think if I had time and a lovely big kitchen and quite a lot of money I would enjoy buying food-but I would prefer leaving it in its singular state-that’s how I felt about the chemicals too really-they looked so pretty on their own the prints couldn’t help but disappoint me-the opposite of alchemy!
Do you use cookbooks to do this?
If I am at my sisters I look at hers-but on the whole I make it up often not very successfully-I should they certainly teach you new skills. I love those old pattisier books
What are your five favourite cookbooks?
Oh dear I am such a novice! I haven’t ever found the one I want-it must exist. I did find a great one in Barnes & Noble in New York-I copied the Baked Alaska recipe down and made it for the person we were staying with. My sister bought some very smelly leeks for the first course that she was making. We went to a gallery to look at a rare Joseph Cornell box, not realising it was a private home and stank their apartment out!
My ideal book would be really simple and things you could do to enhance things say-really simple fish next to…well what would accompany it really beautifully.
What is your favourite recipe? (or recipes)
Gingerbread-from someone called Bronwyn-I suppose it’s maternal substitution.
My mother is and was an appalling cook. She used to put cheap crisps in the oven till they were soggy and call them game chips
