Pat McDermott: the joy

WhentheManof theHousedoesdinner,it’satimely reminder of the importance of starting afresh.

WORDS by PAT M CDERMOTT ILLUSTRATION by EUN-YOUNG LIM

“How

hard can it be?” asked the MOTH (the Man of the House) of no-one in particular. He was sitting at the kitchen table leafing through our collection of battered cookbooks.

“What are you thinking of making?” I asked warily.

This is a man, dear reader, who still struggles to find the business end of a can opener. I acknowledge that one Sunday morning in early 1984 he successfully made a mountain of toast. We had wall-to-wall babies, toddlers and a whiny five-year-old and he won them over with blobs of strawberry jam and a lot of Milo. When two or three of us are gathered together, we hear about it still.

“If it’s a cake you’re thinking of making,” I said helpfully, “you can’t beat The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book. It’s on the second shelf. The front cover is stuck on with that black tape the boys used when they played rugby.”

“I’m not making a cake! I’m doing something special. I’m going to fire up the barbecue and roast that leg of lamb I bought.It’s been in the freezer for ages!”

My heart skipped a beat. The idea of MOTH vs MEAT was always a little scary. But with the giant mound of meat gone I’d finally have room for essentials like ice-cream and ‘easybake’ croissants.

The MOTH prowled the bookshelf and found the copy of Larousse Gastronomique Ruff Red was forced to leave behind when he went back to New York after Christmas. “Too heavy mate,” said the cheery baggage handler at the airport. “Plane won’t get off the ground!”

The MOTH lugged it to the kitchen table and began to explore the world’s most complicated recipes.

Undeterred, he set off two hours later to an expensive gourmet grocery store with a scribbled list in his hand. He came home with assorted spices and a bottle of pricey Spanish olive oil.

“It cost more than the champagne but the Spanish really know how to cook!”

“But do you?” I asked. “Remember the Salmon Trout Berchoux? The recipe called for mushrooms, truffles and artichoke hearts sweated in butter and sprinkled with parmesan!”

“We didn’t have heavy cream,” the MOTH said. “It needed heavy cream!”

“I ended up ordering pizza!”

But this time things went better. We dusted off the high chair, set the table on the terrace and found balls for small feet to kick round the garden. There was a new friend at the table, the lamb roast was hot and juicy, and we had cake and ice-cream for dessert.

As dusk fell we sat back in our chairs, full of good food and grateful for the new year ahead.

I thought for a moment about New Year’s Eve when I was a small girl in Canada. My dad would wake me up at midnight and take me outside into the snow.

“See, there’s no footprints in the snow. It’s a new year. No mistakes made yet,” he’d say. “Always remember that every year we all get to start over again.”

Happy New Year, dear readers. AWW