Food and the Single Man

Roger Collis

Description

As a 'road warrior' Roger has a wealth of culinary experience. Here are the benefits of years in the kitchen.He says, 'I work with intuition and what I have to hand; I've learned to trust the taste buds in my head. So trust me.'There is no truth in the rumor that he plans a late late late career change to go into PR full-time as a celebrity cook.

Informations

• Publié par: Roger Collis
• Date de parution: 19 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908886095
• Langue: English

Extrait

Food the Single Man recipes for survival and seduction
By Roger Collis
Roger Collis is best known for his column, The Frequent Traveler, published every Friday for 23 years (1985-2008), in the International Herald Tribune ; and as a contributing travel columnist for the New York Times .
The second edition of Roger s bestselling book, The Survivor s Guide to Business Travel was described by the London Times as the best source of independent travel advice on the market. He is also the author of If My Boss Calls, Make Sure you Get His Name , a collection of columns satirizing the corporate life. Roger won a special award in the Carlson Wagonlit 2004 press awards for the Business Travel industry.
A life spent as a road warrior has given Roger a wealth of culinary experience, good and bad. In this engaging book, part memoir and part cookery book, he gives readers the benefit of his years of experimenting in the kitchen.
He says I work with intuition and what I have to hand, which will vary; and I have learned to trust the taste buds in my head. So trust me; you will want to make your own adjustments as you go along; but all these survival recipes do work - more or less.
Roger is a versatile voice artist and narrator. There seems to be no truth in the rumor that he plans a late late late career change to go into public relations as a full-time celebrity cook.
Visit him at www.rogercollis.co.uk
Roger Collis

Food the Single Man
recipes for survival and seduction
PIGSTY PRESS GATTON 2011
Pigsty Press, Gatton Reigate, Surrey
Designed by Kirsty Anderson
Roger Collis 2011
The right of Roger Collis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This book cannot be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
For D
About this book
About 100 years ago, my agent, Pat Lomax, was quite interested in my idea for a cook book. The moment has long passed. But since losing D, my beloved wife, and a proper cook, with whom I competed amicably in the kitchen, and revisiting my notes, I started to be intrigued once more. Proper cooks will notice with disdain that I am invariably imprecise about ingredients and quantities. So be it. I work with intuition and what I have to hand, which will vary; and I have learned to trust the taste buds in my head. So trust me; you will want to make your own adjustments as you go along; but all these survival recipes do work - more or less.
CONTENTS
Ground rules
Soups
Salads
Super Sandwiches
Fish
Meat
Slow Cookin
Gravy
Potatoes
Other veg.
Eggs Pasta
Cheese
On the Fly
Grazing
Sauces
Puddings
Nibbles Things
Olive oil vinegars
Herbs, spices condiments
Ground Rules
Fast food does not need to be junk food: food can be junk at any speed.
I have never been a hobby cook; one who spends hours fiddling around in the kitchen with copper pots and esoteric confections (sheer escapism for many otherwise undomesticated males) and who leave it to you know who to clear the deck afterwards. I am a getting-food-on-the-table sort of cook - having done it for women, children and animals for several decades. And I have enjoyed doing it. Their satisfaction has been my reward.
Home cooking (especially for the single gourmet) is the art of compromise. You have to cut a few corners: do you make it or buy it in? Do you jazz it up? If so how?
However tight the budget, always try to buy the best ingredients and produce: prioritize. In fact, taking a little trouble with the best stuff is often cheaper and more delicious than so-called convenience bung-ins from the supermarket. Always afford the best tea and coffee. When I m out I invariably order a double espresso with a little bottle of fizzy water on the side; at home I make coffee in a cafeti re. (I usually buy Whittard s breakfast blend and have it ground in front of me in the shop.) It only takes as long as boiling the water, for heaven s sake. You can buy cafeti res for one or two cups. There all kinds of fancy espresso gizmos on the market. Life is too short for the likes of Nescafe.
Maintain standards. When you re living alone, it s a great temptation to graze, especially if you work at home. But try to make yourself a real meal at least once a day. Yes, the joy of cooking is giving someone else (especially someone you love) pleasure; but treating yourself with respect helps you to retain your self-respect when you are alone. If you need to rationalize, pretend to yourself that you are experimenting with a new dish. Your demeanor should be finely tuned; after all, you are independent, inviting admiration, especially if you are a man, for the brave way in which you are coping; and yet, and yet, at the same time you are subtly, invitingly vulnerable to members of the opposite sex, who may themselves, perhaps, be crying out subliminally for tender loving care. Ah, well, you can always hope and dream! There is still hope, as long as you dream.
Like politics, and writing a newspaper column, cooking is the art of the possible. This means making do with whatever you have available in the fridge or store cupboard. (It doesn t have to be baked beans on toast - although this was one of D s favorites; and it s a comfort food with memories of students dorms and bed-sitter days; as long as you have staples, such as, pasta; rice; potatoes; bread; olive oil; butter; a tin of sardines or smoked oysters or mussels, you can always put together a tasty something.) There is an exquisite dialectic between a purist and a realist.
The other day, a few rashers of bacon, slowly fried, and steamed spinach, hit the spot. Simple. Or, slice a few leftover cold potatoes, and saut them in rosemary flavored olive oil. Grilled/ fried tomatoes on toast make a respectable dish; add a fried egg, a bit of bacon or, wow, saut ed lamb s kidney, and you have a feast. Mix and match is the byword. Side dishes can be main courses, depending on quantities and circumstances.
When entertaining guests, prepare as much as you can beforehand so as to minimize your time in the kitchen and maximize your time at the table to chat to people. And keep it simple. Therefore, never attempt a hot starter that needs close and last-minute attention, and a hot main course; and, heaven forbid, a souffl for pudding - unless you really have got a slave in the kitchen. On the other hand, you may want to serve a hot starter with a cold main course. (Or, acquire a slave in the kitchen!)
A neat compromise with one or two guests is to say, Come and talk to me in the kitchen, which can lead to a lot of convivial standing around and getting sloshed, while all your timing goes up the creek and the meal itself is compromised. Weigh up the pros and cons.
When entertaining a member of the opposite sex, it is important to strike the right dialectical balance between engaging vulnerability and proud self-sufficiency - hopefully, eliciting both sympathy and admiration, depending upon your agenda.
I like to think in terms of a dish rather than starter and main course. A starter can sometimes serve as a main course (scallops come to mind); it s not always a matter of quantity or garniture, or vice versa. Sometimes, faced with a posh la carte menu, I will order two or three starters and pass on the main course.
(It is sometimes nice to escape the tyranny of the sequential menu - from starter to pudding, fish before fowl, before roast, and so on. I remember the blissful freedom of meals in Italy when everyone ordered dishes out of sequence. Some people would be eating gateau with ice-cream while others at the same table might be having fish or roast goat. You enjoyed a dish; order another!
That is what I did at the famous Hotel Sacher in Vienna. Tafelspitz is a fabled Austrian dish consisting of boiled fillet of beef, slow-cooked with vegetables, served with Apfelkron (stewed apple and horseradish) and Roesti (shred boiled potatoes with a potato grater; fry finely sliced onions in hot oil until they turn soft; add the potatoes; and slowly fry the mixture, while stirring, until it is crisp). While everyone else had moved on to Sachertorte (a chocolate cake confection with whipped cream), I crassly order another helping of Tafelspitz.)
You may have an open plan kitchen/diner in which case you are able to give a running commentary while you are working, in the manner of a TV chef. Maybe it s better if they don t actually see what you re doing. Showmanship is not for everyone.
(Another stratagem is to eavesdrop on your guests chat while you are in the kitchen. Back in the late fifties in Liverpool, the late Fritz Spiegel, principal flute at the Philharmonic in my time at the University - and his then wife, the harpsichordist Bridget Fry, I am told, left their Grundig tape recorder running when they were out of the room; more mischievous than m chant, I like to think.)
There is virtually no difference in catering for one person or two; the second portion can always be revisited in some form or other. The leftovers factor is important in planning meals ahead. I often buy a much larger piece of fish or meat than I can possibly eat at one sitting and eat the rest cold, or combined with something else in another dish.
The other day, for example, I bought a piece of sirloin (enough for a dinner party) and roasted it for myself. It was absolutely mouthwatering. And I wished I could have done it more justice, or better still shared it. (I can imagine how a golfer must feel who goes out alone and scores a hole in one - when th