August 16, 2024

…and finishing it.

Let me get back to tasting. That’s the whole lesson, the instinct that Sohla is trying to hone - how to taste food, when to taste it, what to look for (and probably other stuff, I have not finished reading the chapter intro yet). The base - the main preparation that I put together two days ago (good for three in the fridge!) - combines cannellini beans, celery, spring onion, gherkins (oh cucumber variants, you can’t hide from me for long), olive oil, salt, pepper, tabasco. I think that’s all, it’s been a couple days.

First, there was the conversion of 15.5 oz cans to the standard can-in-hand I had. I think it’s pretty much the same, but the recipe called for two, so I got a post-it and wrote down the quantities of every other ingredient, halved. This was part of the “Game Plan” that El-Waylly recommends (I am reading bits of this book, promise!):

“by not wasting my thoughts on what I’m going to do next, I can target all my energy into what I’m doing right now.”

Godammit. Don’t you just hate it when solid advice works out? Like all that super obvious CBT step-by-step process just, fricking, works? Like the daily hip abductions that, yes, make my hip hurt less, and the reaching-out-to-friends that, fine, do make it easier to feel hope rather than anxiety when I think of them, it turns out that planning what you are going to do ahead of time makes it easier to just get on and focus up. It allowed me to taste the food I was making rather than throwing quantities of flavours in because they will work from memory.

Which follows on from the vegan cheese issue. I can’t predict it, because it doesn’t form part of my memory, and I find it an extra layer of effort to take in what’s there. It also inherently uses that knowledge of what cheese should taste like to allow consumers to fill in the gaps.

So, as I chopped up the green things really small (including celery leaf from the heart of the celery - which is more shades of unripe lemon than green), I only had to check my little post-it and not rework each division and American to European conversion. I could take the time to check and recheck the recipe instead for whether the can liquid (bean liquor?) was wanted (it didn’t state either way, and all of it would be too slippy I think, but next time I might keep some and lower the salt) and get it all prepped and seasoned and tasted¹ between ad breaks of Vera.

Then it went in the fridge for the next day.

How do you feel about fridge beans?

How do you feel about tasting day-old fridge beans?

I focused on the bread. I figured out how to work the grill². I used a peeler to grate the cheese (not a thing, just a lack of grater), then moved to cutting almost immediately as the integrity of the cheddar-like block was lacking. I toasted both sides of the bread, and as I buttered it, I was able to bring myself to maybe taste a little bit of my preparation. But it was just like tasting cold. Sometimes, you have to make sure you’re past the opening sequence in certain episodes of Bones at dinner time, or it can really make it hard to eat. I needed to not taste the fridge beans, or else I would another expensive treat for the worms. I spooned the beans onto the toast, I let small, crumbly handfuls of cheese fall on top, and I grilled.

Look, it was fine. Mostly good. And would have been put together between the ad breaks of a different Vera episode (working through it, babe), if it wasn’t for the grill issue. We’ve had the bean salad (mush? I don’t want to be hard on it, but squished beans by any other name etc etc) on soft white bread as today’s train sandwich, and it is fine. There was no vegan cheese playdoh melted on top confuse matters - but also, there was no crunch to elevate it.

I needed to taste it more. I didn’t have that same experience when adding salt or MSG to the cucumber, where the vegetable’s presence made itself known each time. Instead, I trusted the halved recipe and kind of stopped just after the recipe did. Next time (and there will be a next time with this recipe, but also the next different recipe I make), I need to taste and adapt so what I have to eat is tasty. Punchy. Makes me want to sneak a little of each component as I put a dish together, rather than pile it one and waiting until I am too hungry and it becomes functionally attractive (toast, grill, browned cheese Alps) enough to eat. 

I want to come away from the memory of foods. Sometimes it’s useful, and eating is better than not eating, but maybe I should have a game plan. Maybe a little cracker before cooking. Then I could dip that little cracker in for tasting, or apple slice, or spinach leaf. And then I could save my thoughts for writing, instead of wasting them on fridge revulsion. I could maybe focus on the now.