Agony Liz
Your kitchen dilemmas answered (to a degree)
I have missed you all. I’ve been out of ideas lately, and the longer I went without writing, the less I felt that the little ideas I was having were worth re-emerging with. But, as terrible as I am at starting things and sticking with them, this newsletter is important to me, and I had to find a way to plunge back in.
So here is something I have been wanting to try out for a while. I asked people to send me their kitchen questions - in the broadest sense possible - so I could answer them here. A kind of kitchen agony aunt, if you will. It was a lot of fun, and I got more great questions than I could squeeze into one edition, so I’ll be back with another Agony Liz edition soon - make sure to send a message or leave a comment if you have any questions you want answered.
I can’t seem to follow recipes correctly, any advice?
When I was at primary school, they made us do this exercise where you are given a sheet of paper with a list of instructions to follow. They include writing your name on the paper, standing up with your hands on your head, and tearing the piece of paper into four. But the very first instruction was to read all the instructions before you started. And the last instruction was to ignore all the other instructions and just sit quietly at your place without doing anything else.
Teacher’s pet that I was, I found myself sitting smugly while the rest of the class followed the increasingly extravagant set of instructions, clear proof that they hadn’t read through to the last one before getting started.
The moral of this story is supposed to be that you should always read a recipe all the way through before you start. It helps you know what to anticipate and means you can better visualise what comes next.
However, there is another side to this story that 10-year-old me would never have confessed to my teachers. The thing is, I wasn’t actually going into it blind. I already knew the twist in the exercise because my older brother had been made to do it a few years before and talked about it at home. So maybe a better moral is to have an older brother who tells you what to expect from life (or just recipes?) in advance. But we can’t all be blessed with that kind of luck.
I think what this really teaches us is that experience is the school of life and sometimes you have to fail a few times to get it right, and that’s ok! Messing up a recipe is annoying and frustrating, but it’s also, crucially, not the end of the world. If you’re anything like me, cooking is a welcome escape from the pressures of work, life, and general adulting, and maybe messing up a recipe is your brain’s way of telling you it needs a bit of a break: roll with it.
After all, the (possibly apocryphal) origin stories for so many classic dishes (think Tarte Tatin, Crepes Suzette and ganache) involve someone messing up, so pat yourself on the back and get ready to be honoured by the history books.
What can I cook for him so he falls madly in love with me?
Trust me, if I knew the answer to this my life would look very different from how it does right now. Whoever said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach failed to mention the various roadblocks that will inevitably litter the way, from allergies to emotional unavailability to international borders to your own crippling inability to make eye contact - let alone small talk - with someone you have even a crush on.
And let’s be honest, if it’s not meant to be, there is nothing a perfectly executed soufflé is going to do that can change that. But that doesn’t mean that a killer romantic dinner isn’t worth a shot. And you have two options in this respect:
Wow him with your tried and tested signature dish
Cooking for someone you low-key want to marry is always going to be nerve-wracking, so this approach is all about minimising stress and controlling the controllable so that you can focus on batting your eyelids and sharing witty anecdotes. Something so simple that you could basically do with your eyes closed (between bats of the eyelids) is the ideal strategy here. This will depend on your personal repertoire, but never forget that pasta will always be sexy, and anything that can be prepped ahead of time can be a lifesaver. That said, if he’s Italian and you’re not, you may want to avoid the pasta route. The last thing you want is the ghost of his nonna getting in the way of your future happiness. Thank me later.
Charm him with your incompetence!
This strategy is what I would call high-risk, high-reward, and you are invited to follow it at your own peril. The advantage of this strategy is that it lets Mr. Right be the hero. Think Mark Darcey swooping in to help Bridget Jones whip up an omelette during the infamous blue soup incident. The only rule here is to aim high. Try something totally new to you and well beyond even an optimistic interpretation of your skillset. He’ll arrive to find you in a sea of flour spillages, burnt asparagus and unrisen chocolate cake. Best-case scenario, you have an endearing anecdote about your disastrous first dinner date to share at your wedding. Worst-case scenario, he judges you outright and you never hear from him again. And if he’s the type to react like that it’s better to find out now, right?
How can I use all the different mushrooms that are now in season?
Mushrooms are fully one of the best foods on this planet and I will not hear anything to the contrary. With this in mind, I’m taking advantage of this question to first of all tell all of you to read the wonderful Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It will help you understand why I find it grating when people include mushrooms in ‘plant-based’ cooking (Clue: they’re not plants, they’re fungi).
Now, when it comes to cooking mushrooms, there’s nobody better than Bettina Makalintal. This article is a perfect guide to crisping up any variety, and her secondary insta is a treasure trove of shroomspo to get you through autumn and winter.
Some of my personal favourite uses for mushrooms include a veggie stroganoff (because I never say no to an excuse to use some cream), risotto (duh), or if you really want to indulge, Nigel Slater’s mushroom bourguignon or this cosy-looking mushroom and Guinness stew from Meera Sodha. Otherwise, nothing beats what is perhaps the ultimate serve-it-at-any-mealtime dish of mushrooms on toast. Choose a flavourful seedy bread then top with pan-fried mushrooms cooked with with loads of butter, salt and pepper.
Message me with your questions for the next edition of Agony Liz, or leave them in the comments below!
Baker’s dozen
13 good things from the past few weeks months
A wonderful few days in Rome filled with endless pizza al taglio, perfect supplì and impeccably executed capsule wardrobes.
While we’re on the subject of travel, I went back to Barcelona (AGAIN), and it was of course perfect.
Made Nigella’s chocolate gingerbread for Guy Fawkes because one of my besties has been asking for it for two solid years.
Iris Murdoch was always my favourite writer when I was a teenager but it’s been years since I read anything by her, and so I recently decided to change that and really enjoyed The Nice and the Good.
I got two great jumpers from Massimo Dutti (thank God for their Spanish prices) in my perfect colours (scarlet and blue) and I will not be taking them off all winter.
I’ve been savouring the most delicious coffee from Salvatge in Barcelona. It makes working from home days infinitely more bearable.
At last being able to change out my earrings after I got them pierced back in April at the ripe old age of 27.
An actually good cafe has FINALLY opened in the empty wasteland around where my office is. This is life-changing.
Travelled for work for the first time with two excellent colleagues. Madrid was, they would say, régalade.
My cookbook collection has enjoyed some fabulous additions recently thanks to my local second-hand bookshop.
A bakery-filled visit to Brussels from one of my oldest and bestest friends.
Made sausage rolls. This is always always a good idea.
More info on those regaladoros from Madrid would be useful.