Tag Archives: food

May 13, 2013 · 10:49 am

Camping hygiene

My little sister and I shared a tent this weekend. (I was actually quite cold, and would have liked to have shared a sleeping bag, but she wasn’t having any of it).

It was purportedly a 3 man tent, but any space for a third person was taken up by my little sister’s constant complaining about her ‘lack of space’, and whingeing requests for me to ‘move over’. Which, naturally, being a very considerate and accommodating person, I did, only to have her moan that she meant I should ‘move the other way- away from her’. (There is simply no pleasing some people).

I foolishly believed, having shared a flat for some time with my sister (and what with us both being brought up together, by the same people), that my little sister and I would have similar ideas about acceptable tent-behaviour. ‘What is that dreadful smell?’ I asked, waking up on Saturday morning. ‘What?’ My little sister mumbled, her mouth full of scotch eggs and lamb koftas.

(My little sister had arrived at Kings Cross first, and gotten in some M&S provisions. Her deepest fear seemed to be that we would spend the weekend starving, because she had seemingly been through M&S on a smash and grab, filling her shopping basket with the oddest assortment of food I’d ever seen). ‘You can’t eat inside the tent,’ I told her crossly. ‘It’s unhygienic, and smelly.’ We then had a brief but heated discussion on each other’s varying levels of smelliness and general levels of hygiene, which ended with me throwing my little sister’s food out of the tent.

This matter resolved, I went back to sleep. (I had not slept particularly well the night before, what with all my little sister’s endless requests for me to ‘take up less space’, and my need to explain how, as a solid, I occupied a fixed amount of space at all times). My little sister and I passed a perfectly lovely day together, running about in the country, and later returned to our tent to shower and change for drinks.

I popped to the toilet, and returned to find my little sister brushing her hair inside our tent.

‘Aaagh,’ I yelled in horror. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m brushing my hair,’ My little sister replied. ‘No,’ I replied firmly, yanking her out of the tent. ‘No, you are not. Do you know how horrible that is? All those stray hairs drifting around our tent? You will brush your hair outside.’ ‘But that’s so unhygienic,’ My little sister replied. ‘That’s where I eat!’

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January 2, 2013 · 11:17 am

Can we not just have some intercourse?

Christmas is over- which means it’s a great time to remember it. (Obviously- because that’s how memory works. Otherwise we just call it ‘noticing things’). Here are my Christmas memories:

Christmas this year was at my Mothers. My Mother, despite her penchant for throwing parties and lunches, is not a natural hostess. She has an off-putting habit of hoovering the kitchen floor whilst you are still at the table, eating; or plumping sofa cushions up whilst you are sitting against them. Unwilling to serve anyone younger than herself, she encourages her children to ‘grab a drink from the fridge’, and is later apoplectically angry that we have drunk the ‘very expensive’ red wine. (Why the red wine is in the fridge to start with is a whole other issue).

We were 5 for Christmas- my Mother, her paramour, my little brother, my little sister and myself. Originally, my little sister wasn’t meant to be there at all- as a junior doctor, she had to go into work. As a junior doctor, however, she was about as helpful as an iPhone charger for a Blackberry, and got sent home early. ‘Don’t tell Mum,’ I encouraged her. ‘And I’ll go in first, then you follow as a surprise.’

Which, like most of my ideas, initially worked wonderfully. Until my Mother made an enormous fuss over my little sister, plying her with champagne and attention, whilst asking me to ‘find that big bowl’.

To her credit, my Mother’s Christmas lunch was faultless- mounds of impeccable food and really excellent wine. In fact, there was so much food that my little brother begged post mains, ‘Can we not just have some intercourse?’

As we stared at him in bewilderment we realized he meant ‘a small pause in-between courses’. It was funny enough to almost forgive him for beating me at charades.

‘We have movies!’ My Mother announced excitedly after lunch.

My sister and I nodded politely, wondering when it would be appropriate to tell my aged Mother that DVDs are pretty universally available these days. ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ She announced, pressing play. ‘Why is this such bad quality?’ She asked crossly, rounding on us. ‘Look- it’s in black and white. This was a very expensive DVD player.’

Worn out with explaining how time and technology work, my little sister fell asleep on the sofa next to me. My little brother had slunk off upstairs, presumably to investigate the differences between a ‘goose’ and a ‘duck’ (this was another excellent conversational addition from him), so I was the only offspring still present to witness my Mother’s outstanding critical commentary of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ – which, according to her, ‘should have been called ‘this life is terrible, please get me out of my small town’. I left before she saw the next movie, but am eager to hear her wise and insightful thoughts on ‘Ted’.

‘That was fun,’ My little sister said cheerfully on the way home. I turned to glare at her. ‘You spent most of the day asleep,’ I pointed out. ‘Yes,’ She said happily. ‘Well I was a bit worn out from all the love and attention I had been receiving. Did you ever find that big bowl, by the way?’ I glared at my little sister, who, completely unaffected, told our cab driver, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’.

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May 15, 2012 · 9:19 am

How I fooled everyone

I’d like to talk about money.

Money is something that, until recently, I knew very little about. I still don’t have any money, personally, but I know lots of people who do. One of these people is my Mother. She invited me to a fundraising dinner. ‘It’s £90 a head,’ She emailed me. ‘Would you like to come?’ I wondered what to do. ‘Um,’ I emailed back. ‘It depends…’ (A normal person would now have put me out of my misery, and explained if I was to pay the £90 or they were. My Mother is not a normal person). ‘It depends on what?’ My Mother emailed back cheerfully.

It turns out she was paying, so I went. ‘It starts at 6.30pm,’ My Mother told me the day before the dinner. ‘I can’t get there til 8.30pm,’ I explained. ‘No problem at all,’ My Mother insisted. ‘You are on a table of young professionals. No-one will be there before 9pm.’ My Mother has very odd views of young professionals, the oddest being that I am one of them, but I couldn’t be bothered to argue, so I set about preparing to walk into a dinner 2 hours late.

I knew, what with my unacceptable lateness, that it was important that I made a good first impression. So as I sat down to my (full) table, I stuck my hand out to the chap to my left, and introduced myself. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘I’m Lucy. I hope you haven’t eaten my food.’ Things were going swimmingly. I’m not a young professional, so I let the others talk about their careers and rents and aspirations while I got on with my own job- getting as much for my (Mother’s) money as possible.

I ate my own food, asked the lady next to me if I could have her leftovers, and convinced the waitress to shovel the rest of the shared dish onto my plate before she cleared.

I asked the chap next to me if I could borrow a pen, and didn’t return it. I collected all the young professionals’ business cards- business cards are the perfect size for flashing pithy little insults at people when they are on the phone. (You write the insult on the white bit at the back of the card, obviously).

I feel that I am now in a much better position to talk about money. You can tell who has money by how they act at a fancy fundraising dinner. I’m pretty sure I fooled everyone. After all, the rich didn’t become rich by not getting their money’s worth, did they?

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February 20, 2012 · 12:31 pm

London Fashion Week

Last Friday, I went to my first ever fashion party. I was moderately excited, until my friends started calling. ‘What shall I wear?’ One asked. ‘What’s the dress code?’ Another emailed. I crossly sent a group email. ‘I can help not at all with the dress code, so please stop asking me.’ There was blissful silence. Friday afternoon, my friend texted me. ‘I don’t care if you don’t know what you SHOULD wear, just tell me what you are GOING to wear.’ (I think my friend didn’t realise that capitals means shouting. I have noticed that a lot of people don’t know this. My Mother, for instance). ‘I don’t know why you’re fussed,’ I replied. ‘We go out all the time.’ ‘But this is different,’ My friend moaned. ‘This is a FASHION party.’ I ignored her at the time, but she was right. Fashion parties are different to normal parties. They’re much worse.

We arrived a little early, and stood in the cold waiting for the doors to open. A somewhat stretched looking older woman strode past us. ‘I do not queue,’ She said to her much younger assistant. ‘Luckily,’ I replied quickly. ‘I do. So if you could just wait behind us, that’d be great.’ People who think plastic surgery reduces one’s facial movement did not see the withering glare this woman shot me. I responded with my own, much practised look, which involves opening my eyes very widely. If you are scared of particularly gormless, shocked looking humans, you would be terrified. Otherwise, not so much.

We entered, got drinks, and chatted amongst ourselves. The party filled up. We continued to drink and talk. It was rather fun. There were lots of curiously dressed people to look at, and unbelievably fancy Belvedere vodka to drink.

(We were very much like Charlie and his Grandpa in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory). Except for one, vital difference. There was nothing to eat. Not a single, blessed thing. When we couldn’t bear it any more, we crossed the road and went to a dumpling and noodle bar, where I blissfully ate 13 dumplings and took off my heels.

‘In future,’ I said to my friends. ‘Instead of fussing about the dress code, we’re going to make dinner plans.’ ‘With that kind of attitude,’ My friend replied. ‘I doubt there’s going to be any future fashion parties for you.’ If you hate food, think queues are beneath you and like to ‘express yourself through your outfit’, you will love fashion parties. You can come and tell me about them if you like-I’ll be in that delicious dumpling bar.

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June 20, 2011 · 10:17 am

Uncomfortably close

I had an odd experience on a recent flight. The air stewardess, who had been impeccably polite to me (though I felt she did not make a thorough enough examination of the kitchen for extra food) was short tempered and exasperated with the chap opposite. She asked him if he had any rubbish, and when he shook his head, ignored him, leant across sighing and removed a biscuit wrapper. I mean, to her, perhaps that wrapper was rubbish but he had clearly stated that to him it wasn’t. It was quite a nice wrapper, I thought, shiny and a good size. It had come with a rather thick chocolate biscuit in it. I had assumed it was two biscuits so spent a minute or so trying to wrench them apart. I then spent another minute trying to work out what to do with all the chocolate smeared across my hands. Anyway, the air stewardess didn’t reprimand me for this at all which led me to believe that something was going on between her and the gentleman opposite me. Or at least something between her and the biscuit wrapper. When I say something was going, I’m not talking about anything naughty. It was more as if he had stuck his foot in the aisle one two many times, or looked disbelieving when she told him there was no extra food (there’s always extra food! If I had been allowed in the kitchen I could have sniffed it out in a minute). Anyway, the air stewardesses’ annoyance had created a curious intimacy between herself and this passenger. Initially, I was jealous. People are always keener to find extra food for those they know. (I would just like to clarify that in my opinion food distribution on planes is done all wrong. Firstly, they take ages to get a drink in your hand. That’s the first rule of opening people. At my grandparent’s house it is often quite difficult to unload your car because of the drink in your hand. I’m not saying that’s the ideal, but it’s certainly better than the drought that happens every time you board a plane. I’ve done some research on this. Even in First Class, they only give you non-alcoholic beverages until long after you take off. Secondly, after they finally get you a drink they then start the interminable business of bringing round the first meal. I’m always asleep! I can’t remember the last time I had breakfast and lunch on a plane. I’m helping their margins! I do not want to do that. I always wake up starving in time for the ‘snack’ which as we saw with the grossly fat biscuit, is often confusing. If I ran an airline, I would welcome guests on board with a drink. I bet all those fusses over window seats and putting your luggage in the overhead locker would subside. Then I would let everyone sleep quietly for 3-4 hours, and then I’d bring round the food. Perfect. I’d also give out the snack as people left the plane-because the queues at passport control are only getting worse). Anyway, I kept a close eye on this gentleman opposite and he did not seem to get any extra food. Here are some people you should not get too close to:

1. The waiter. You might think this would be great and that you’ll get good service. In reality, because they know you you’ll probably get much worse service, and you’re obligated to tip.

2. The dentist. They are going to try and talk to you while you’ve got all that paraphernalia in your mouth. Just messy.

3. The hairdresser. I’m not great at multitasking personally, but if your hairdresser is engaged in a really interesting and salacious conversation with you, her attention is not going to be fully on your hair. Probably the back will suffer. And by the time they hold that mirror up it’ll all be too late. (I always like to use that mirror to see the other people behind me – I’m not sure I really care what my hair looks like opposite my face, I mean, its only people walking behind me who will see it. And they’re probably acolytes. Or stalkers. I don’t think they deserve to look at great hair).

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June 6, 2011 · 11:28 am

It’s all in the timing

I’ve being doing some thinking about timing.

1.I was at a dinner party last week. It was delightful. Well, the company were a little risque for the extremely modest dress I was wearing (I had come straight from the office) but the food was absolutely splendid. So good, in fact, that once I had finished I simply started again. I’m certain repeating your meal in its entirety does in fact exactly adhere to the terms set out by ‘seconds’. No one asks you if you’d like ‘a little bit more but obviously much less of the food you just ate’. That’d be ‘halves’. No, like every gracious hostess my friend asked if I wanted ‘seconds’. And I did. So there I was, smugly full, having a lovely time. Until not 10 minutes later aforementioned gracious hostess brought out pudding. Pudding?! I didn’t know there was pudding! I would have planned my eating entirely differently! What a dreadful turn of events. I felt like Federer after the 1st set. How could everything have gone so terribly wrong? Obviously I dug deep and polished off half a litre of frozen yoghurt, but still. I was all out of sorts. People simply must inform you at the start of the meal as to what you are going to be offered. Or else tapas would be an exercise in ferocious food snatching from those impossibly small plates. It would be terrifying.

2. When I was at school, there were two must-have watches. The Baby G, and the blue Storm watch. Now in a tale that has terrible parallels with my dinner party seconds fiasco, I begged and pleaded and sulked and generally used every weapon in my 12 year old arsenal and finally received a purple Baby G.

(In 1998, the watch of schoolgirls’ dreams)

Now I cannot describe how much I liked this watch. In fact, I liked it so much that I was extremely loath to take it off. Ever. I was completely  unfazed by my nanny’s disgust at the line of dirt that collected across my wrist. What I was crushed by was how dirty the outside of the strap appeared to be when compared to the pristine lilac that had sat so comfortably against my schoolgirl wrist. No amount of carefully dabbed on water and  smeared fairy liquid made any difference at all. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t the end of the world (I can say this without sobbing after a pretty intensive therapy course on ‘loss’). After all, at this point I was still rocking that year’s must-have watch. I was still pretty cool. I mean, it was pretty grubby and smelt slightly of strawberry (we had a upwardly mobile cleaner who only bought ‘special edition’ cleaning products). But it was still a Baby G. I was still ‘in’. You already know where this story is going, and why 1999 was the worst year ever. Those bloody Storm watches. So elegant. So easy to slide on. So absolutely certain that I was not going to get one. If only I’d had the foresight to pace myself. Yes, this is a story with a moral. It’s absolutely imperative that you find people (parents, friends, lovers) who will buy you watches on a yearly basis.

(I have to walk past their shop on Carnaby Street on the way to the office. It still hurts)

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