Food, Glorious Food.....

So, it was another one of those nights last night.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, my brain switched on. I don't know how many of you have this problem, but honestly, its pants! I am fairly sure creative people are wired differently to those who are not cursed with a need to write or sing or make beautiful things. I am sure we are the 'creatures of the night' - forever at our best when the rest of the world sleeps.

For me, I find some of my best ideas appear just as I am beginning to doze off. By the time I am out, I have half a blog already written in my head.

The only problem with that... nine times out of ten I wake up and can't remember any of what I was thinking about.

So that brings me back to last night.

Just as I was beginning to settle, my mind started to drift to memories of scones, lemon meringue pie and cake, taking me back to childhood and a whole host of delightful and delicious moments that have shaped my love for food as I have grown up.

From a young age, we were introduced to lots of different things. My parents sat on completely opposite sides of the fence when it came to food so it was very much dependant on who cooked as to what we could expect.

My mum was a lover of beige food. Not too heavily seasoned but still proper hearty, homecooked, made with love type dishes. Her meals were like a hug for your tummy, and when you are cooking for a family of six on a budget, you have to be good at making things stretch.

My dad, well he was a little more 'fly by the seat of your pants' with his cooking. He liked to experiment and boy, did we get some interesting combinations.

I have talked about it in a previous blog, but his greggs stottie pizza definitely deserves another mention. For those of you want to to try it out, its quite simple.

One greggs stottie chopped in half.

500gm fried mince

Tomato puree

Cheese

You spread the puree on the stottie, cover it in mince, cover that in cheese and bang it in the oven for 10 minutes. What you are left with is a very interesting experience for the palate, and one I am pleased to say was never repeated!

What I will say in his defence though, is that when he got it right, it was delicious. He enjoyed playing around with flavours and I think I can categorically confirm, that is one of the the things I most definitely inherited from him.

Food was something that brought families together as I was growing up.

From family dinners at the table with the telly turned off - heaven forbid - to family gatherings where we would run aorund like tasmanian devils sneaking as many cakes as we could until mum cut us off and we crashed on the couch from the sugar high, food was an integral part of our family, and when I think back to those moments, I am so grateful for the fact that we weren't a 'tea in front of the TV' family.

At the time, I resented my parents for making us sit at the table, but as an adult those moments are, and continue to be, some of my favourite ones.

Saturday was a big day in our house.

Weather permitting, and even sometimes when it wasn't, we would wrap up and my dad would drag us off somewhere hilly, muddy, wet and cold.

Absolutely mint!

Obviously, as I became a teenager, I was officially very upset at this, but the reality was, behind closed doors I loved it.

I loved being in the fresh air.

I loved being surrounded by miles and miles of nothing and I loved the way that the wind would whip around my body - the sound blocking out the noise in my head.

I still love that feel that comes with being out in nature, whether it be sand in between my toes or grass under my feet, or occasionally even hugging a tree!

Once we were done wandering, (getting lost), we would trudge home and chill in front of the telly. For those 90's kids, you will remember the amazing Baywatch, Gladiators, Noel Edmunds.... the list goes on!

Saturday night telly was seriously awesome, and whilst there was Saturday night telly, my mam would do the mam thing that I never got until now.

She would bake.

Scones, cakes, lemon meringue pie.. anything and everything all ready for Sunday tea.

I can categorically confirm that to this date, I have never had a lemon meringue pie like my mams, and I don't think I ever will.

Obvs, I do try them because you never know, but always - always - my mam's pipped them to the post.

Maybe it was a secret recipe worthy of Gordon Ramsay. Maybe it was simply just made with love and that was what we tasted with every delectable and delicious bite.

Whatever the reason, that will always hold the most precious of memories for me.

There was also the chocolate cake. Now the chocolate cake was a slightly different and more controversial story, but hopefully, one that you will all see the humour in.

You see, for years, my mum made the most incredible chocolate cake which turned out to be the most contentious and still talked about cake in my entire life!

It was like soft, smooth, velvety, rich and delicious love.

From the top notes of sweet fudge and milk chocolate to the deeper thrust of dark, decadent joy - this was the chocolate cake to beat all chocolate cake!

We would go over for Sunday diinner just to eat this particular chocolate cake.

How bad is that!

The day we discovered that it was a cake mix was devastating to us all! (Insert laughing face here)

It still haunts us all to this day but the reality is, it was a mix that my mum still added to and then baked, and for those of you who bake, you know how notorioulsy difficult it is to do so successfully.

Everything has to be spot on. Its almost a science.

If it isn't precise, it will not work and then you are left with a flat and slightly depressing puddle of something that should have been rather fabulous!

The beauty of this cake is that we still talk about it and joke with my mum about the fact that the base mix wasn't made by her.

We still laugh, but thats the point.

Whether she made it from scratch or not actually isn't important.

What matters is that we all experienced that incredible cake, and we all share those memories even now. They are unique to us as a family, and all jokes aside, that is something so incredibly special that until my mum is gone, I am not sure we will really recognise just how much so.

So, food, glorious food.

When you think back, how many of you sat around the dinner table as kids and watched the adults debating?

How many of you enjoyed family parties where you sneaked more cake than you should or sipped a glass of leftover champagne without your parents seeing?

How many of you took on the stress of creating a spread for a family gathering but took the most amazing pleasure in watching everyone come, talk and clear the table like a flock of locusts?

How many of you have cooked a meal for the person you love and thrown everything into it showing how much you love them through the way that you cook?

Food is love.

Its a labour of love for those who are cooking, and a show of love for those who enjoy it. It is an incredible way of bringing people together and something that we all agree on as being more than just a vital part of life.

When I started this, it was all about a dream - something I am used to keeping me awake.

Now I am finishing, I realise that some of my best memories involve food. Not because of how it tastes but because of what it represents.

It represents family.

t represents love.

It represents time taken to make sure that the people who are important to you are satisfied.

It represents conversation and debate and time with the people who are important to you.

It is a way of bringing people together and that is a beautiful thing.

This christmas will be another year for many where food is the glue that brings them together, but this year, lets make it more than that.

Lets make the promise that in 2025 it won't take a party to do that. It won't take a special occasion and it won't pass us by without event.

Lets use the beauty of a great spread and family time as a reason to get together no matter what the time of year is.

After all, tomorrow isn't promised. Yesterday is gone and right now - right now is the real present.

Until next time.......