Yak Yak Yak: Strokes

If you hadn’t already noticed, I’m mad about food. I’m not going to use the “F” word because it means nothing, but then I would also dismiss the “G” word (gourmet) since it seems now to be applied to even the humble burger. I like a burger from time to time but in all my years, and they number many, I have never had a burger that passed the tasty mark and headed even close to gourmet.
Food, eating it, making it and talking about it probably takes up far too much of my time, but I can think of worse things that I could be obsessed with. I wouldn’t describe it as a hobby, I’m not a fan of hobbies as such. There’s stuff that I do and stuff that I don’t do and I’m afraid that hobbies I don’t do, I simply do not have the time for pastimes. Time passes fast enough!
So food it is and I am surrounded by the trappings of a serious food lover, the pots and pans, dishes and bowls, cutlery, crockery and that’s before I start listing the gadgets and devices that I employ in creating tasty stuff. Then there are the books, silly numbers, and mainly proper text books as opposed to the glossy photo led food porn that so many people drool over. No, give me a Claudia Roden or an Elizabeth David any day. Real food books for real food lovers.
I talk food all the time too, and only the other day I realised that my passion for cooking and ingredients was perhaps becoming slightly scary. I was out with friends and we were talking ingredients. We were all naming favourite things to eat and I declared that pretty high on my list was rabbit. A couple of friends agreed that rabbit was good but one friend looked worried. “I think rabbit is scary, so many bones, so difficult to navigate.” I replied; “It’s not that difficult really, it’s just like cuddling a cat – but with a knife and fork!”. I may have gone too far.