TOP OF THE POTS
Neven Maguire’s new book, his 15th in all, Home Economics for Life: The 50 Recipes You Need to Know, is being launched tomorrow night by his old pal Marty Whelan in Dunnes Stores’ HQ in George’s Street, Dublin. The book is a manifesto for the masses in many ways, featuring 50 dishes that everyone should know how to prepare.
“Food is medicine for the body,” he says. I might add that Neven Maguire’s food is also medicine for the soul.
The award-winning chef and restaurateur took on a near-impossible task. He spent 90 minutes in his cookery school in Co Cavan teaching me — someone who at 50 years of age is ashamed to say he can’t cook — how to cook.
How to make bread, make a Thai broth and the idiot-proof art of the perfect steak.
“We have the best meat in the world, in my opinion, in Ireland. My father’s father was a cattle dealer. He knew good meat,” says Neven.
My life hasn’t been the same since my lesson. His new book has become my new bible, and with it, Messiah Maguire my personal Lord of the Hob.
It was bordering on the spiritual, certainly meditative, to spend 40 minutes preparing a Thai Broth, carefully chopping garlic and onions and mushrooms, using good local produce, then seasoning the steak, slowly, very slowly; nothing was fast.
Cooking like this, you feel free from the culture of fast food and a fast world. I started thinking about ingredients, about plants and animals and life itself.