Andrew Kay: Home on the range

As winter draws in I crave a big casserole

The spider garrison that I call my home … yes, they are multiplying in numbers, or at least it would seem so. Perhaps it is just that they are getting fatter as they demolish the fruit fly population generated by the grapevine at my back door – god, where was I, those spiders are dominating my life! Oh yes, home. I simply love being at home this time of year.

Perhaps the drop in temperature is the reason why; that need to nest. It’s certainly something to do with cooking all those delicious ingredients that have appeared in the shops – and working on my TV show Cook It! has revitalised my interest in that.

So much so that on Sunday, with no firm plans, I had breakfast and decided that I would make a big pasty for my lunch.

How does one define big? I suppose it should be based on need; the need for it to be big enough to feed the number of people eating. Well, of course now I live alone, for the most part that number is one. Cooking for one. I just cannot do it.

I remember, years ago, buying a friend the Delia Smith book Cooking For One as a Christmas gift. He opened it and tears came to his eyes. I thought at first that he was moved, or at least that he was disappointed because he already had a copy. I was being insensitive – he was upset because the book clearly defined him as being single, a state that obviously made him very unhappy.

Let me state now that I am not unhappy. Far from it, I am having a pretty good life right now despite all the illness and upset that has beset the Kay family in the last two years. No, I am good with my status – or at least I am until I get into that kitchen and start realising that a lot of the food that I love is simply not possible to make for one.

I know I could freeze it, but I only have a tiny ice-box right now, and leftovers can be fun once, even twice, but after that they simply become a bore. I don’t want the same meal four times in a row. Nor do I want to be feeding the world every time I hit the range.

This is not a cry for jam jars, not a cry for help, not a cry for attention

A friend recently offered me a mountain of green tomatoes. They looked good, all kinds of varieties that I am sure would make a great chutney. I wanted to take them and make that chutney, a big vat of bubbling spicy gloop, simmering its way to setting point and then being ladled into sterile jam jars hot from the oven … jam jars plural; I live alone so a jar of jam lasts quite some time. So long in fact that it’s pretty hard to avoid the inevitable jam-mould-issue, and yes, I throw it away. No scraping of fungus off anything since my run in with the raw milk. I might be being over-cautious, but I’m not taking any risks.

This is not a cry for jam jars, not a cry for help, not a cry for attention. It’s just a simple reality that cooking for one is a state of mind that I do not occupy, not yet. I still cook my meals. I still shop properly – but I do crave those great big casseroles that fill my heart with joy and my tummy with tasty sustenance.

The pasty? Big enough for four!

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