Kitchen tales...

Beyond macaroni cheese and our weekly plate of liver and onions, I can't remember a single meal my mother cooked from scratch.

My brother and sister will have different memories perhaps, being a decade or so older and having lived with both my mother and grandmother during the sixties, when cooking was still plain and simple  and kitchens and family life were yet to be sabotaged by T.V dinners and dining in relay as opposed to family meals.

By the time I remember what was coming out of our kitchen my mother had begun a comitted relationship with frozen food,, and by the time my brother and sister had moved out and on with their lives it was just me, and mum and Captain Bird's Eye!

My Mother was an interesting phenomenon, overbearingly smothering in a non participatory way. I did as I wanted when I wanted. No boundaries.

But, she was always there, wanting love and wanting to give love but never being able to break down the walls of her own stifled childhood to fully acheive it.

My sister will understand what I mean, it's one of the bonds of our relationship. We were damaged in ways our Mother would never be able to understand by her emotional absence in our lives. The battle rages on in our lives, at a time when she has been able to find a certain amount of peace and the ability to give love more freely.

 For my sister and I giving love has never really been the problem, the pain of being raised by someone emotionally stunted has manifested itself in other ways... I am grateful at least that it made us both determined to be better parents and gave us the thread that links us both, immovably no matter how far apart we are.

And so for me, cooking is a form of expression. I love to cook for the people I love, and the people I love know it. When love has been the elemental factor in producing a meal it tastes different, affects the senses differently. Becomes part of the patchwork of memories that we look back on with fondness.

I am an emotional cook, nothing makes me happier than seeing the people I love gathered around a meal of my making. Sometimes, I'm constrained by finances or produce availability... sometimes both. But that just makes the challenge sweeter.

The simlplest meals can be created with love, and love is everything.

Sometimes we love people who can't or won't love us back. But it's quite often the love that we give out that's the most fulfilling.

Spinach Meatballs
(made with love)

Take roughly 1kg of minced lamb or beef... whatever your preference.

Combine the mince with a finely diced onion, as much garlic as your tastebuds can handle, some wilted spinach, an egg, salt, black pepper and a dash of cumin.

Bring the mixture together into balls and then heat a little olive oil or smen in a generously sized frying pan.

Sear the meatballs till they're brown and ever so slightly caramelised.

Without removing the meatballs from the pan, add a little more diced onion and garlic and soften on a gentle heat.

Add a 1/2 tsp of cumin and about a tsp of ras al hanoot if you have it.

After that, add a finely chopped, peeled tomato, a handful more wilted spinach and a half a generous tablespoonful of tomato paste.

Cover with just enough water to scarcely touch the top of the meatballs and leave the sauce to simmer away until it's reduced and thick enough to cling to the meatballs.

Check your seasoning, and serve with whatever takes your fancy.

We had mash, but it works just as well with any other carby alternative.

On really lazy days we might crack eggs straight into the sauce and let them steam till they're barely cooked and the yolks are still oozy and runny, eaten communally off of a big dish with lots of crusty baguette and perhaps some harissa....

Love is what YOU make it...