A Cook's Library

Hello, my name is Karen Homer and I am an ex-fashion writer who has given up the frocks for my true love – food. So, instead of saving up my pennies for dresses and shoes I now spend every last one on artisan cheese (particularly cheese) . . . and fish and pasture-reared meat and fresh market vegetables and improbably expensive Spanish ham and dark, bitter single-origin chocolate and olive oil and rich, yellow butter and heritage grains and obscure herbs and spices that more often than not live out a sorry life forgotten at the back of the cupboard.  Oh, and books on food: food history, food politics and cookbooks . . . I spend far too much on cookbooks.

So, in honour of all the forgotten spices and the boxed up cookbooks I have decided to dust them off and share them, via this blog that I hope will become the kind of cook’s library of recipes and lessons that I have, over the years and through my favourite cookbooks, illuminating books on how and what to eat, and musings and jottings in my kitchen notebooks, built for myself and my family.

Talking of family, I have a husband and two small (but fast-growing) children and since their arrival I have become PASSIONATE about eating local, seasonal sustainable food, the ‘slow food’ way and teaching them to do the same.  I dream of not being badgered for the chocolate spread sandwiches and sugar-laden yoghurts my son’s schoolfriends have in their lunchboxes and  school dinners that are truly nutritious and children are encouraged to take time to eat.

My style of cooking is simple and I like to think reasonably economical. I particularly like the kind of cooking that starts with one thing, a top quality roast chicken or piece of good meat, and develops into an early-evening kids’ meal, a later, richer more adult version, a next-day risotto or bolognese and a stock (I am OBSESSED by stock, but more of that later) to form the base of delicious soups and more stews.

Aside – get your children interested in soup young and you will never be lost for something nutritious and cheap to give them.

This way of cooking appeals to my hatred of waste – even if I am a little deluded about being very economical in my food shopping – actually I think we all need to accept that good food does mean paying a little more but the rewards for health and pleasure far outweigh the cost.

So by not wasting a single morsel I can allow myself to buy the kind of well-reared meat, dairy products, fish, eggs and vegetables that are the foundation of good health.  Most of all these foods demand respectful cooking and teach us all a lesson in how sitting at the table with family and friends, eating delicious, seasonal food is the ultimate pleasure.

Michael Pollan, writing about Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement sums up my own philosophy eloquently:

“Petrini puts pleasure at the centre of his politics. . . for why shouldn’t pleasure figure in the politics of the food movement? Good food is potentially one of the most democratic pleasures a society can offer, and is one of those subjects, like sports, that people can talk about across lines of class, ethnicity, and race.”

My food politics echo Petrini’s (and Pollan’s). I believe in shopping ‘beyond the barcode’ as much as possible. I hate supermarkets, always have done and even more so now I often have a 2-year-old in tow, grasping at the nearest processed rubbish designed (and placed) specifically to appeal to the young and gullible. I also believe supermarkets beat producers down on price so unfairly that it threatens the very core of the farming industry in this country. If you do nothing else, buy direct at the farmers’ markets.  Aside from a basics dry goods run I shop at London farmers’ markets, have a weekly organic box delivery, seek out independent butchers, cheese and fish-mongers wherever I can. I buy quality over quantity (and sometimes quality and quantity!)

I do attempt to grow a little of my own – shamefully, only herbs this year, although the 2-year-old and even the 6-year-old are keen, too much mud gets thrown, too little planted.  One day I dream of my own kitchen garden. In the meantime I buy as local as I can and always aware of the seasons, although this gives me the occasional ridiculous dilemma of whether to buy strawberries for my toddler in January when they are clearly shipped half way across the globe but they are a FRUIT and she is ASKING for them . . .

Anyway, I am being far more long-winded than I meant to be . . . a few other things, the recipes are as and when I cook them, apologies for rough and ready photography. And please note that my recipes and style of cooking are very much tailored to personal preference. TASTE as you go along and soon you will learn what works and what doesn’t. I always offer variations on a theme which is useful for home cooks where often cooking a daily meal is born of what is in the bottom of the fridge, how much stock needs using up, whether there is rice or barley or farro in the cupboard etc.

But don’t worry, anything like cake-baking that is a science as much as an art is specific and plenty of what I cook is slow and happy in the oven for as long as takes to wrest the children from the playground on an unexpectedly sunny day. . .

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 8:57 am and is filed under More about A Cook's Library. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.