Out with the old, and in with the new
The trouble with buying gifts is the risk of purchasing something for yourself, a selfish act that goes against the spirit of Christmas and the concept of giving unto others. I should have held out till the Boxing Day sales, but what the heck, I splashed out and bought the cookbook and have been working my way through the recipes.
And you know what that means. You have to spring for a whole swag of new condiments and intriguing ingredients you’ve never heard of before.
I take my hat off to supermarket personnel. They possess an encyclopaedic knowledge of the shelves and can immediately direct you to the exact aisle to find that exotic ingredient, something belligerent males of a previous generation would refer to as ‘‘foreign muck’’.
There comes a time in every amateur cook’s life when their signature dishes simply don’t cut it any more. What was once a lookedforward-to favourite dish has become tired and unexciting.
Interestingly enough, I have noticed that even the favourite dish gets sick of itself and will sabotage the creation of it, even though you swear you included the same ingredients and repeated all the old familiar steps. But the cook knows what she did wrong, she took that dish for granted and didn’t show it any love.
When you live by yourself, you can easily fall into slack eating habits. Often I have caught myself eating like a wild animal, wrenching great chunks off a loaf, slapping something dodgy over it and wolfing it down, as if other wolves were about to steal it from you. Just throw a piece of newspaper down on the floor and throw something down on it, why don’t you?
‘‘After all, it’s only me,’’ you growl as the beast in you can’t be bothered knocking up a nourishing repast. A bowl of cereal and milk, or heating something simple up and eating it out of the saucepan, will do. Hey, keeping the dirty dish count down is good for the environment, isn’t it?
Good grief. Time to take oneself in hand. Hence the new cookbook and the vague attempt to do as Julie did, in the film Julie & Julia where Julie Powell, an ardent fan of Julia Child, cooked 524 of Child’s recipes in 365 days.
I’m not going to attempt that herculean task, but I am going to endeavour to bake a chocolate cake with beetroot in it, complete with icing.
I was born of a domestic goddess whose signature dish was her legendary chocolate cake, and she would be dead proud that finally I have taken up the spatula. If I pull it off, I will take a piece of said cake and leave it on the goddess’ grave on Christmas Day. It’s never too late to make an offering.
My new cookbook is a vegetarian one because, to trot out the oft-used quote of the age, ‘‘I want to be part of the solution, not the problem’’.
This year I’ve switched from milk to soy in my coffee in order to be part of that solution.
My cafe of choice has been amazed by its customers’ defection from milk to all the myriad alternatives on offer. We’re drinking our way to a quiet revolution.
To all the cooks out there slaving over your hot stoves on Christmas Day, I take my pinny off to you, and wish you all the condiments of the season.
Idon’t know how long I’ll be writing in these pages, but it’s never too soon to initiate a new holiday tradition: in this case, an end-of-year review of the best-hidden gems of this, the Golden Age of Television. (It helps that my fickle mood has been low of late, which means I’ve waded more deeply into the subject than all but the most dedicated of TV critics.)
I’ve mainly avoided blockbusters or the otherwise much-hyped among the thousands of television shows available at the click of the mouse. The more modest fare interests me – in particular, shows that have found a niche too narrow to excite broadcast TV honchos of old; the kind of content, in other words, made possible by the advent of streaming – a technology that has defied cynics by unleashing a proliferation of diverse and, dare I say it, quirky content.
Barely 10 years ago, television felt like a medium in precipitous decline, awash in cheap, brainsapping reality shows, formulaic sitcoms and wornout police procedurals. Few could predict that the advent of Netflix and streaming services wouldn’t just create a body of new content, but would help drive a renaissance of original TV production across older airwaves as well.
Breaking Bad, one of this era’s defining masterpieces, was produced by AMC, a cable network that had hitherto replayed old movies on a loop. BBC America, of all places, made Killing Eve (TVNZ Online), a witheringly violent feminist crime thriller. Nowadays, even the Weather Channel has a suite of original programming to keep viewers entertained between forecasts.
Among all of this, what to watch?
In Ramy (available on TVNZ Online), a young Egyptian-American struggles to navigate faith and family amid the many secular temptations of life in New York City. It’s great telly – funny and raw. Across 10 episodes, we get to know Ramy’s friends, his parents and sister. Each is richly drawn, defying stereotypes in their own way, utterly empathetic. Ramy’s own slow, tentative embrace of Islam is anything but preachy, instead offering a touching and relatable portrait of a young man searching for meaning and belonging.
Another, somewhat lighter, take on the American immigrant experience is Master of None (two seasons on Netflix). It follows the lackadaisical adventures of Dev (comedian Aziz Ansari, who also writes the show) as the 30-year-old son of an Indian doctor as he shuffles through the New York dating scene while half-heartedly pursuing a showbiz career. Thanks to sharp writing and the star’s effortless screen presence, it’s a LOL-worthy delight.
In Atypical (three seasons on Netflix), we meet the
Galatians 4:4-5