on becoming Ken Dodd….and other recipes…

On taking stock of things, I never seem to have enough. More precisely, I never seem to have enough of the things of which I would like an excess. Money, hair and teeth would come high on the list although, on reflection, an excess of hair and teeth would open up the undesirable prospect of resembling a reincarnation of Ken Dodd or suffering an untimely death at the hands of one of the myopic and trigger happy local chasseurs. There is a continual deficit;  an insufficiency; of patience, jam, words, pistachios, concentration, caviar and application. Application has always been in short supply. If there was one reiterated shortcoming mentioned in my school reports, lack of application would have been it. Happily, my belief that the designation of dilettante was a compliment provided me with the shield that served to inure me to tutorial criticism and which has enabled me to amble carelessly through life whilst still arriving on the sunny side of the street. On saying that, it should be mentioned that the humble lane on which we live would be as happy to be called a street as I was to be called a dilettante. This and others were among the miscellany of thoughts that passed through my mind as the whisks spun their sorcery of amalgamating the eggs and cream that would fill a shell of Ottolenghi’s sour cream pastry in company with some roasted cherry tomatoes and the remnants of a quite ordinary log of goat cheese. My sense of lack became apparent as photography of the cooked tart began. The experience culled from the years of working in studios where stylists would arrive with van loads of “props” has left me with unrequited expectations. I expect to open a cupboard and to be spoiled for choice by the array of possibilities laid out before me. As usual, I picked up the one knife that I like at the moment. What I really like is what is written on it.