Dreams you can eat.

Heading towards payday and I am stoney broke!

Such a time to dream and fantasise about the things I am going to eat when I have money.  I am thinking of this as I write this.  

I want the world...

 I am thinking of buying two full chickens, roasting them then eating them like a feral beast in the corner of a darkened room.  Oh red meat!  How I adore thee.  
Cakes.  Buttery fluffy cakes with buttercream icing so thickly applied you can barely open your mouth wide enough to get it all in.  But of course, you can.  

All of these things I think about when I am loaded with pasta, rice or potatoes.  Cheap to eat, with nutritious accompaniments that fill and satisfy you, albeit temporarily.  

I am sitting satisfied after making pizzas from scratch with lots of cheese and a sauce of minced onion, garlic and tomato.  However I sit somewhat sad.  How greedy have I become? That after a lovely meal I am unhappy because I can't make some cake, or have a few squares of chocolate, or make ice cream, or bake something!

As a cook, having an empty kitchen is deeply unsettling.  You can't just go in there and knock something together for the pleasure of it.  I am not a total glutton, I don't even really want to eat what I bake or cook.  It is the process, the tasting, the presentation and the faces of the people eating my food fill me more than anything.  

As food gets more expensive a cook has to be more wary of the 'big shop', it is so easy to go in there on payday and buy all the things you've dreamt about for the last week leading up to it.  But you have to feed yourself, partner and brother for a month.  So it is chastening.  I still can't help it though.  That slither of dolcelatte, plus some booze, some snacks for the kids (there are no kids in this house).  Before you know it you've racked up a couple of hundred pounds worth of shopping and half way through the month you're regretting that bottle of wine.  The 'cheesefest' you had whilst watching a film.  The snacks.  Feeling guilty about the extra garlic, bread, peppers, meat and so on it could have bought to make your meals go further.  

So one of my joys in life, food shopping, has that tinge of sadness to it because now there is always a limit to what I can buy.  

So on I dream... custard tarts, fruit salads with yoghurt, apple tart tatin (which I haven't made yet but I got the Raymond Blanc cookbook from the library and I cannot wait to give it a go), a cheese selection with chutneys and lovely breads and crackers.... I can go on.  

I can promise you this, dear readers, I will make the same mistake again when I go shopping on Friday.  I will buy the wine, I will buy the cheese, I will buy all the things!!!

I am, in fact, a brunette otherwise this is an accurate depiction of me on pay day