3 minute read
The Last Word
ROLY POLY, GAMMON & SPINACH
Imay have mentioned this before, I’m not sure, although I have revealed most things about myself over the past 12 years so probably, but with my memory not being what it used to it’s difficult to be 100% positive!
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I like a bit of cooking. I used to be a chef and still like to get involved on a regular basis with any kind of cooking that takes my fancy and obviously with successive lockdowns that interest went into overdrive.
In the last year or so I have tackled sourdough (didn’t everybody?!), bread and cakes of all descriptions and from all corners, authentic
curries from all over the world, traditional British classics got a look in as well, all kinds of tastes and flavours have been tried in our household. It was a lovely experience actually, helping me through some tough times during the last 18 months or so. My wife has enjoyed it too, both of us sometimes a little too much, especially where cake is involved. When she cooks and I become the sous chef and do her prep for her apparently my mis-en-place is a thing of beauty!! I think the kids are still more enamoured with a plate of well cooked chicken nuggets, chips and baked beans mind you. The nadir of my experience with my children came when it was the older one’s 8th birthday party. She, knowing I bake every day near enough, said something along the lines of, “Daddy I think I’d rather have a Jurassic World dinosaur cake from the shop rather than you make me one”. Bless her she didn’t know how wounded I was. She didn’t see me slink upstairs and have a quiet weep in a darkened room!!!
myself I make a mean Christmas pudding and even did a vegan one this year which I think went pretty well. It’s quite a pressure though as obviously you won’t know whether it’s actually any good or not until they serve it on ‘The Day’, by which time it’s all a little too late if it’s not up to scratch! I thought I’d get ahead of the game and buy all the ingredients before I knew how much I would need. All well and good until I realised my 2 pint pudding basins are actually 1 pint so ended up getting twice as much of everything. Cue an interesting few days seeking out recipes that could help rid me of five surplus boxes of suet!!! I decided to make some jam roly-polys. I’d never actually made a jam roly-poly before but how hard could it be right, suet pastry, spread with jam, roll it up and bake it. Well let’s just say they were more poly than roly, they were quite flat once baked and some of the jam had leaked out. Again you don’t know how much until you serve it and apparently quite a bit had escaped… it did at least use up the suet so all’s well that ends well.
Cooking for and feeding people is, I think, a really basic, integral part of being a human being, I love doing it and I can only hope the results are enjoyed as much when they are eaten as when they are being created.
Phil Rockliffe
