At this time of year, it’s tempting to devote a space like this to the making and breaking of kitchen resolutions (I refuse to say the word diet). But I’m going to be awkward, and save all that for next month. January is bad enough without talk of waistlines. What about some happy news instead, like the fact that the beloved and supremely talented chef Henry Harris quietly opened his new restaurant, Bouchon Racine, shortly before Christmas?
Look, I can’t be the only person in the world who will forever carry with me the memory of at least half a dozen dishes all of which were so unimpeachably delicious at the time – a combination of circumstances as well as ingredients – they will surely remain unmatched for the rest of my days. Just as I will never eat a crab sandwich as good as the one I devoured at a pub in Seahouses in Northumberland after a long walk in filthy weather, no grilled chicken with rice and tomatoes will ever live up to those that were served to a dripping wet me (I’d been swimming) on an old boat in the middle of a lake in Turkey a whole lifetime ago. I eat knafeh, oozing sugar syrup and soft white cheese, whenever I see it. But I’ve never tasted any so delicious as the slice I hungrily forked up beneath the fluorescent strip lights of a Ramallah sweet shop in 2005, my reward for days of hard work.
