Kitchen is my solace during our hard times

LATE on a Friday afternoon, as the sun dips low in the sky and the light softens into dusk, I begin my weekly ritual. At the kitchen counter I slice and dice, while the oven hums gently in the background.

Pans bubble on the stove as I stir, meditatively, watching as a sauce thickens or a splash of wine sizzles, steams and evaporates.

I have done this every week since lockdown. Over the past seven months I have churned out enough food to feed an army. Deprived of meals out, I have instead turned inwards.

Sometimes, as I spoon rice noodles into a hot bowl, or grate garlic into a thick, oily dressing, I think of our last visit to a restaurant. It was a Sunday afternoon, the first day in March.

The restaurant, which was to be magically transformed into the twinkly oasis where our guests would arrive from the church for our champagne reception, was half- empty. A smiley waiter brought beautifully plated dishes for us to sample and share as we chose our wedding menu.

Had we known then that it would be our last restaurant meal for so many months, that there would be no wedding, not this year at least, we might have made more of it. Lingered a little.

But it was Lent and we were both off alcohol, trying to eat healthily to kickstart our wedding diets. And so we tried our dishes, refused the proffered wine in favour of water. no big deal, we thought. There would be plenty more of that to come.

Weeks later, when lockdown hit, I retreated to the kitchen. Every weekend I would cook, spending hours chopping and slicing as the windows slowly steamed up and the world became progressively darker.

I spent whole evenings immersed in recipe books, learning about breadmaking methods and the correct way to spatchcock a chicken, as the everrising case numbers flickered beside me on the television screen.

On what would have been my hen night we ate steak and salad, the meat red and raw in the middle. When my fiancé’s birthday loomed I constructed an elaborate Thai meal, spent weeks researching recipes and cooking methods, ordered exotic ingredients from a South East Asian supermarket.

Through the post came two unripe papayas, green and plump. Fresh lime leaves, their aromatic scent wafting through the bag. Tamarind pulp, as rich and unctuous as a jar of blackstrap molasses.

But more often it is the simple, comforting staples that I have returned to again and again. Shepherd’s pie, the cheese crust baked brown. A lemony carbonara with silky egg yolks whisked in at the last minute. A crisp cucumber salad, studded with thin slivers of fresh chilli and mint.

We all have these rituals. Solo meditations which soothe us. Gardening, sewing, knitting, running, reading, assembling a model train set or figuring out an elaborate jigsaw.

Once hobbies, in these strange pandemic times, they have become our lifelines. Take the 22-year-old who used the time after he was made redundant due to Covid-19 to create a lavish treehouse. Fergus Hart, from Beauly, spent months constructing the 12ft luxury log house, which features a balcony, a double bed, electric sockets – and a cannon. More power to him, I say.

AS case numbers rise again and our cities lock down, the much-discussed second wave threatening to hit us like a tsunami, there is not much else to do but find comfort in ritual, to search out solace in our own personal escapes.

There is so much to feel bleak about right now. So little to look forward to. What will Christmas look like? new Year? And what happens after that?

We have been robbed of so much in 2020. Parties and weddings, yes, but more important moments too. The ability to hold the hand of a grieving friend. To hug a loved one. To stroke the hair of an adored grandchild.

But every Friday, there is a meal to prepare. In your home there may be a scarf to finish knitting, or some weeds to take out, or a new book to read. Tiny rituals, carried out faithfully, that keep us going, when the world feels like it is falling apart.