We ate and ate and ate. But we didn’t feel too full. No having to retire to the couch to recover from gluttony, assailed by the accompanying guilt. Our Japanese repast was light, the flavours delicate and fresh, and pleasantly unusual on the palate.
“The moment I suggested Japanese I regretted it,” said Meryl after lunch. “I realised I knew nothing about cooking Japanese food.”
But she had just acted in accordance with the charter of this club: to broaden our horizons, to challenge ourselves culinarily (I know, no such word).
“Don’t make sushi!” I ordered the group when I received an email from Meryl suggesting Japanese cuisine. I was shot down by return mail. “Okay,” I conceded. Well, guess what, there wasn’t a piece of sushi in sight on the day (I am not gloating).
Meryl plied us with kombucha, a fermented tea drink. Lunch was served, a delicately flavoured seaweed salad, another salad of soba noodles, and a soup of fat white noodles. My current food challenge is to work on presenting food well, so the next dish was a sort of deconstructed sashimi. Along with the tuna was salmon, raw and cooked.
Between courses we supped on warm saki, pleasantly lightly alcoholic, then the meal was crowned with Mary’s refreshing lychee and melon salad. We were a small group. Somehow I have paradigm that it is more successful to have a larger group but in fact the conversation is better with the smaller group, more intimate.
The conversation was the talk of women of a certain age. Two of the group turn 60 this year, and one made it last year. This led to talking about the concept of flatting in old age, the pro’s and cons. I have a fantasy of several of us sharing a house, cooking, sharing the workload, enjoying the financial benefits of sharing costs, intelligent conversation in the evenings. But are we too set in our ways, does our thinking crystalise as we get older, how do we stop this? Would the wisdom we have gained in age and experience help us deal with the inevitable inequities flatting always throws up.
Sitting in the late afternoon sun Meryl commented “I used to feel so nervous bringing my food to the cooking club meals, and now I’m hosting one.” I’m delighted with this development, and hope everyone is getting something out of our cooking club aside from sharing a lovely meal.
We’ve decided to try out lunches instead of dinners. Is this an age thing? Somehow lunch feels more leisurely, the meal ends in its own good time.
Out to Lunch Cooking Club 