To live in my house is to know gustatory joy. I wake each morning, thinking only of dinner. What shall I cook for them all today? What glorious dish shall I present to my lucky family tonight? Shall I head to the hot and numbing embrace of Sichuan or the darker flavours of northern Spain? Will salted anchovies be involved somewhere in the profound depths of a sauce with more power and oomph than a Porsche 911 Turbo? They often are. I have cupboards full of condiments and sauces. I am rich in ground cumin, dried chillies and sticky pots of tamarind. I have the kitchen skills, the determination and the monumental greed needed to execute brilliant food for every meal. Being part of my family is to win the culinary lottery of life.
Or perhaps not. Recently, as I was serving up my latest creation – it may have been the long-braised ox cheeks in a spiced tomato sauce from a recipe by José Pizarro, or perhaps the teriyaki chicken – I asked my loved ones what they’d had for dinner on a previous night when I’d been out. It was a casual question, with a far less than casual intent. I wanted to know just how much they’d missed me. My wife, Pat, sat up and grinned. “Sausage sandwiches,” she said. “It was great.” My boys joined in. Oh yeah, doughy, cheap white bread, and the crap sausages, not those annoying ones with too much actual meat in them, and nowhere near enough nipple and nostril. The three of them fell to discussing the thrills of their sausage sandwich fest. I blinked. Sausage sandwiches? For dinner? Pat shrugged, and dug around at the lovingly crafted plate of utter wonderfulness in front of her. “We have to wait for you to go out to be able to do that sort of thing.”
