Comfort Foods

Comfort Foods

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We don't eat out a lot, which means my wife makes dinner for me almost every night. She taught herself how to cook and I get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. In exchange, I do the dishes. It's a system that works out very well for us. It plays to each others' strengths. If I was in charge of the kitchen she would have to choose between Hamburger Helper or Taco Bell every night. HH is the only meal I used to cook regularly in college and I got very good at mixing it up to taste like different things. It's what we both ate a lot during our first years living in Los Angeles, though that was long before we met. It was such a go-to dish it made a weekly appearance on our dinner table at the beginning of our relationship. I think we're both glad she developed higher culinary skills than cooking pasta out of a box and that I was no longer allowed in the kitchen.

Our house is strewn with cookbooks, some used more than others and none ever cracked by me. Until recently, when she got one called Recipes Every Man Should Know. Since using the microwave is a challenge for me (unless she tells me how long to cook something), I wasn't sure I could handle any of the recipes from this little black book. The introduction claims that cooking will make men look sexy and that it will be fun because it involves fire, sharp instruments and meat. It's an intriguing premise, (who doesn't want to appear sexier) so I took it as a challenge to see if it could help someone like me make a meal we could enjoy.

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ihopThis spring, during a trip to Long Island, I managed to fullfil one of my lifetime travel ambitions.

Yes, I would like to one day look at the dusty pyramids of Egypt. Yes, I hope that I will eventually stand in some remote part of Alaska and stare, mesmerized, at the Northern Lights. But for me, this time round, it was all about a house. Or rather, an International House. Of Pancakes.

That's right: my inner list titled 'experiences I would dearly like to have during my life' included breakfast in a branch of IHOP. You see, I am a collector. Not of stamps, or coins, or copies of old NASA magazines, but of breakfasting experiences. I love the first meal of the day. I love how it is at once a meal and a ritual. I love that it gives us a chance, before the spell of sleep is forgotten, to sit and savour some of the most delicious and yet pleasingly simple foods available. I love to think about what all this means.

For eight years I have run a website, The London Review of Breakfasts, whose sole purpose is to take breakfast more seriously than anyone else – comically seriously, some have alleged. It contains accounts not just of my breakfasts, but the breakfasts of others; dispatches from cafes, diners and restaurants sent from places like London (where I'm from), the USA (breakfast-serving joints anywhere from California to Ohio), Malawi, Denmark, Mongolia, Haiti…

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nigellabites.jpgHow do I love Nigella? Let me count the ways. Sometimes she’s bigger, and some times she’s smaller, but she’s always incredibly beautiful. She is incredible intelligent and well-educated, and has had some incredibly hard knocks (including the death of her first husband) and survived with consummate grace.

She is a mother over 40 who oozes sex appeal, admits to cooking pasta for herself to eat in bed while watching television, and deep fries candy bars in batter. Most important, in an age of molecular gastronomy and foodie preciousness, she cooks food that is simple, sensuous and exactly what you were yearning for but couldn’t name until you saw the recipe.

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