As a young man I knew exactly what I needed to roast a chicken: an oven tray and an oven to put it in, salt and pepper, and an uncompromising way with the butter. As an older man, which is to say one in his 50s, I now realise there’s another vital piece of equipment: a shopping trolley. I bought one just a few days ago and I’m not going to lie. It has changed my life.
Like the shopping trolley, this needs unpacking. I’ve never been very good at meal plans, despite the obvious benefits of gathering ingredients for a week’s cookery in one go. I recognise the value of them, especially if you have a life that makes it impossible to nip to the shops on the fly. I don’t have that sort of life; I have something more akin to a messy sock drawer. Happily, it does allow for a bit of improvisation. The problem is that constantly improvising, trying to be an impulsive, imaginative cook, inspired to make that day’s delightful creation by a mere come-hither purple sentence in a colour supplement about the plumpness of berries, can also be a total ache in the vas deferens. It demands effort. Walking down to the shops is fine; walking back with heaving canvas tote bags of ingredients every other day can make a man very tetchy, that man being me.
