In the meantime I want to talk about cricket. I haven’t done it yet in any blog and this is odd because cricket is my second favourite thing in the world…… After food. Sex is ninth in case you were wondering. Why would you be wondering? Don’t care. My blog, my rules.

I don’t like cricket. Oh no. I love it.

It is for me, the greatest contribution yet made by the English to civilised society. Just purely aesthetically it is majestic. Pristine whites, scarlet ball, lush green outfield and all against the back drop of an azure blue sky. Stunning. And it is cerebral, balletic and aggressive. Athletic and poetic all at once. It is our heritage, wired into our blood, our DNA. I love it so much.

I love watching it for days. I love immmersing myself in a test match- five days that might ebb and flow like a lunar tide, quick quick slow like a waltz. I like the ‘boring’ bits. The attrition. The guts. The gritted teeth and glory. I love it if a batsman scores seven runs in an hour. Thou shalt not pass. And then from nowhere… A towering six, shattered stumps or a stunning catch in the gully. Like a sporting orgasm, an explosion of joy and ecstasy. You have EARNED it. Not like a goal in ice hockey, or a basket in basket ball. This is sport for the purist. To savour and hold dear.

I was at Edgbaston in 2005 for the greatest day of cricket ever played. I have seen Swan Lake at the ENO, studied Shakespeare and become addicted to The Wire. But nowhere in popular culture or great literature is there drama to match that day. Nowhere. I cried and I hugged my friends and we knew that we had witnessed something special. The greatest over ever bowled by big Freddie to Punter. The brutality of Flintoff’s hitting and the the subtle variation from Harmison- the last ball of the day removing Clarke with a gem of a slower ball. Beautiful.

I love to play it too. Since injury stopped my rugby career, cricket has filled the competitive void. And the camaraderie. I love seeing my cricket friends. If I didn’t play cricket I would barely see them. Summer sundays are cricket days. But we rarely win. We try hard and we are quite funny. But we rarely win. And sometimes we get humiliated. But we don’t give up and we ‘play the game’. We are gentleman amongst the professionals. The Corinthian spirit is ours, the taking part and a nice cup of tea. That’s the stuff. Oh yes. That’s the stuff alright.

And that’s why last week I was so sad. Mohammad Amir might just become the best we have ever seen. The boy is eighteen years old and is the greatest ever bowler of his age. He is Tiger Woods. And he is beautiful. Lithe to the wicket like a panther and more graceful that any sportsman you could imagine. He is blessed, touched with genius. And today this boy’s career lies around him in so many tatters. Because he cheated. For a few thousand pounds. This is a boy who only three years ago was living in abject poverty, before his talent and Wasim Akram dragged him from the mire. But he was corruptible and naive and he cheated. And he got caught. And he might never play cricket again. And it is tragic.

And thus, so it is that with great drama comes great tragedy. And as life imitates art, so sport creates it. Great masterpieces so vivid in their colour and scope that it takes your breath away and your heart beats like a drum. And none touch me more, none come close to those scenes in my mind created by wonderful, eccentric, magical cricket.

Our ten bird roast. A great poultry and game filled gonad. With delicious moist legs and a well seasoned forcemeat. It was AMAZING. A ten bird roast. Think on that awhile. Protein layer upon protein layer, moistness, fats and enough bird carcass to make the best gravy EVER.

Dave and I had been talking about it for years. Probably since university.

Doing our own ten bird roast (I like writing ten bird roast).

And Dave is your hunter/gatherer type and an excellent domestic sous-chef which makes him the perfect partner in crime for this kind of capon. Pffft thats a poultry joke right there. Ha! Capon. I of course meant to say caper. Oh that’s hilarious. I’m bonkers I am. Really mental. Capon?!

So off Dave popped with his big gun and cammo gear. And I went to Waitrose. And then three months later we had accumulated and deep frozen our ten birds.

And this is what they were. Turkey, chicken, duck, pheasant, grouse, poussin, pigeon, partridge, woodcock and a poxy litte quail.

So, one Sunday morning we laid out towels on Dave’s living room floor and cling-filmed the coffee table. And I undertook the butchery. Whilst watching Sky Sports for this was a MAN day. And then, with my best and sharpest knife I began the cutting. And I cut and cut and cut. I parted flesh from bone for hours- a gargantuan avian autopsy of deliciousness. And then, there they were. Our ‘layers’. Piled on top of each other, a salmonella-sullied pyramid of protein.

Whilst I undertook the cutting, Dave made the forcemeat. This involved de-skinning loads of good sausages, adding chopped apple and apricots, various herbs and spices and some bread crumbs. He also mopped the poultry juice and sweat from my brow at opportune moments and brought beer to the coffee table/abattoir.

And with that we were ready for assembly- The scrotum moment.

It is fairly straightforward. You lay the turkey out flat and lay the now boneless birds in a pile in descending order of size. Then you fill in the gaps with lovely sausage. And then you have to sew the bugger up. Which is quite time-consuming and hard. And makes you feel like Dr Frankenstein which isn’t  necessarily a bad thing. But then after all that work, finally, in all her meaty glory, there she is- sitting atop that coffee table, the Testicular Empress of Earls Court!

And into the oven she was popped after a thorough buttery massage (We were in Earls Court). All the bones and meat scraps were foisted into the largest pan at our disposal and covered with water, joined by a handful of carrots and a few onions and left to bubble away for the entire roasting time. Which was about six hours if memory serves.

And that was that. Lots of friends came round for dinner that Sunday night and we proudly wheeled our baby in. And…..

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burnt on the water. The poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that
The winds were love-sick with them;

For this magnificent bird was Cleopatra, shiny and bronzed. The aroma: heady.

And into her we carved and glory of glories, perfectly cooked, still moist and succulent and layered like a terrine- pure meat, each flavour complementing the next and all brought together by that seasoned pork. With some greens and crunchy roast potatoes and covered in that thick gamey gravy… Bird heaven.  We could have fed thirty. I think we were eight. Oh God, the sandwiches.

And that was that. We’ll do it again, no doubt. I hope so. The process and the outcome were fun and exciting and medieval. And manly dammit. We fed our women, hear us roar! Ten bird roast. Ten bird roast. Ten bird roast.

You see I have an a vivid childhood memory from around 1984 when I was seven. We had just moved from Greenwich (Woolwich really but shhhhh) to Portrush in Co. Antrim. And as such had a massive garden all of a sudden. This, for me was awfully exciting because up until now, outside space consisted of Eaglesfield ‘Recreation’ Ground where you could roll in dog shit and have your head kicked in by a big boy and get struck with a stick by a park keeper in a paddling pool with your winkie out and your pants down. All of a morning.  And in Portrush we had a big strawberry patch.

And one halcyon Summer evening my family and I went to pick strawberries for a communal strawberry feast. And I found the biggest one! There! Peeping out from its leafy shade. The strawberry to end all strawberries. Ripe, and huge and perfect. With trembling hands I plucked it and held it aloft like the Holy Grail, for twas what it was, and the seas parted and the sky fell and the Earth stopped on its axis for me and my mighty strawberry, this crown jewel of strawberries. My new pride. My new joy.

And Mum said just pop it in the basket.

What now? pop it in the basket. What madness was this? My own Mother. The EVIL. The Cruelty. Why? It’s MY strawberry. It’s so beautiful. I love this strawberry more than I love football. Or Pepsi and Shirley. ANYTHING. And you want me to ‘pop it in the basket’. You want me to SHARE my strawberry, to take a chance- a one in five chance that I might not get to eat MY strawberry. This was witchcraft. Some dark power of which I knew not. And I cried and I cried and I screamed and I shouted and I rolled on the floor until they all saw sense. And I ate that strawberry.

If I’m honest it was probably a bit woody, lacking in sweetness and flavour. But that’s not the point. I don’t share food is the point. And even at seven I knew. Spin on the Grifter? Sure have a go. You want to touch my finished Panini football sticker album? Hmmm OK. But be careful. What’s that? Can you borrow my aerobie? Knock yourself out.

MY TANGY TOMS?! Pal, I’ll break your face right now. And if you so much as look at my Caramac I swear to God you’re getting a massive dead leg. Or a noogie.

And not a huge amount has changed. You can have my West Wing box-set, you can borrow my car, as much cash as I can afford. But if you think that you are getting one of MY roast potatoes, then swivel. Step back, walk away and just don’t even try. Because a noogie at your age is embarrassing for you and for me. But that’s what’ll happen. You see if it doesn’t.

But then invariably something fabulous happens and I’m bonzer again. But it gives me a glimpse, a squinty eyed view of what it must be to suffer from depression. I feel sometimes like I’m teetering on the edge, but with a hefty harness holding me up. But I can see the bottom. I can feel the slimy tentacles pawing at my ankles. But they can’t quite reach. Because of my friends, my family, my job, my godsons. And food, music, writing. Even The Wire. But to submit, to allow the icy grip to pull you deep into that mire. Well I can barely bring myself to think about that. I can’t bear it.

I get sad, not because of a chemical imbalance in my head, not because of genuine illness, but because of things. Real situations, occurrences. Loss, pain and loneliness. I get sad because I am single, but that’s been largely my choice- certainly recently. And its not being single- I actually love being single- it’s that I haven’t yet found a partner in the truest sense of the word. And it seems a waste. I get sad because I don’t own a nice house, that I am approaching my mid thirties and am renting. But…. I have foregone a steady career and salary to find my little place in the world and do something that I love. Still makes me sad though. My sister makes me sad. And the fact that she won’t let her children see their uncles, auntie and grandparents who love them so very much. And, whisper it softly, I get sad sometimes when I get jealous of the people I love. Because it’s a horrible negative emotion and stems from my human weakness and not from anything they have said or done.

But I don’t want to stay in bed all day. I don’t cry myself to sleep. I don’t wake up wondering if this is the day when I end it all. I LOVE my life in the main- it is creatively fulfilling, rich in humour and love and general japes and I earn enough to keep me in Aviators. And no doubt there will be some of you reading this who think this is self-indulgent twaddle penned by a middle class twit. To which I say of course it is you great steaming turd. Its MY blog and its got my name on it- why would I write about something that interests you. I KNOW that in the great scheme of things I’m doing just fine. But its relative. If you are consumed with sadness, it doesn’t make you feel better to know that someones wife has just died of cancer. Or that there are people dying in floods in Pakistan. You are just sad.  And sometimes I think we forget about sadness in the frenzied media maelstrom of depression. Its not going to star in its own documentary, have celebrity officianados or a charity ball. But if you know someone who is a bit sad;  phone them now, out of the blue and tell them something stupid. That made you laugh. Invite them to dinner or go round with a pie. Because depression doesn’t get everyone, most can kick up and away from the darkening depths. But sadness. Sadness is universal, omnipotent  and there. Just around the corner, like so much London Autumn mist.

What do you eat when you are sad?

I think my ultimate comfort food would be a ham hock- gently simmered in stock for hours until just, JUST clinging to the bone. And then covered from head to foot in creamy, white, old-fashioned parsley sauce. With some overcooked new potatoes to mash in to the resultant mess.  And then a WHOLE tinned treacle sponge with a WHOLE tin of ambrosia custard. The sponge must be nuclear hot and the custard fridge cold.

I know! Annoying, isn’t it?

Well I was doing that this morning, whilst mainlining gaviscon and thinking that was a punchy weekend….

And all I did was host a little dinner party on Saturday night.

Six of my closest friends, some extraordinary booze. Actually the most extraordinary booze you can drink more or less and some nice food. The guests booked their baby sitters and left Barnes for the mean streets of Putney. I did an Ipod playlist and plundered Waitrose. Nice and civilised. So far, so middle class. Roast artichoke heart anyone?

And a few days ago I thought about what I would cook. As a private chef I ask people what they would like to eat. I would say that eight out of ten come up with scallops for starter, beef fillet for main and strawberries for dessert. And I always try and change their mind because I find all of those things a bit dull. A bit DONE. A bit Masterchef circa 2004. A bit pea puree and black pudding.

But my chums are simple coves and I though I would take these ingredients and see if I could do a riff or two of my own without being too ‘cheffy’. And this is what I cooked. My very good pal Tom took the photos because as you know I can’t and won’t.

Scallops with puy lentils, chorizo, lime and coriander

This is easy. Cook the puy lentils until tender but still just nutty, remove casing from four chorizo sausages and finely chop the meat. Fry until crispy. Add to lentils with all the gorgeous smoky oil. Add zest and juice of two limes, salt, pepper and a splash of maple syrup. Sear the scallops and spoon over lentils. Finish with coriander.

Then I cooked this

Fillet of beef with chanterelles, creamed corn and broad beans

This looks crap because I was a bit drunk my now- and I’m not going to tell you how to cook a steak- the interesting thing is the corn- The yellow Jackson Pollack-looking vomity bit. It’s a Thomas Keller recipe that he served with duck. I think it works better with beef. And its quite exciting to make and will make you feel all molecular.

Get five ears of corn. Shuck them (run knife from top to bottom) and put kernels of three in a blender with a splash of water. Put the rest in salted boiling water and cook for a minute and a half. Blitz up the corn for a couple of minutes and pour into a chinoise. catch the resulting liquid- gently push down on pulp to speed process along. Discard pulp. Add liquid to a sauce pan on low/medium heat. Whisk. The starch in the corn with make the liquid thicken substantially. whisk in a hundred grams of cold cubed butter, add the cooked corn and add salt and finely ground white pepper. It is surprisingly delicious.

And then for pud, we had this and I was really quite drunk by now.

Macerated strawberries with black olive caramel, white chocolate and honeycomb ice cream

Macerate the strawberries in balsamic vinegar and icing sugar. Make caramel with sugar, water and glucose. Then blitz up with a handful of olives. Make or buy (I made) white chocolate and roll into a cylinder with cling film and foil. Freeze. Smash up three  crunchie bars (couldn’t be arsed to make honeycomb) and sieve. Roll ice cream tube in honeycomb dust. Cut into portions.

And then we ate a big block of manchego and some quince.

The booze that I alluded to earlier was from 1986- Chateau La lagune, Chateau Palmer and Chateau Montrose. And was a TREAT of the highest order. And cost more than my car. A lot more than my car. And I and everyone else there am incredibly grateful to D for bringing. Oh and some Hungarian Tokay with pud. Which I love.

Then we started doing shots of vodka, smoking stale cigarettes that I found in an old drawer and played musical chairs. With additional prizes for dancing technique between chairs. Seven people in their mid-thirties dancing round a table in a tiny dining room is NOT cool. Drunken charade wrestling is also NOT cool. Waking up the next morning and looking after a small child is definitely not cool. But I didn’t have to do that. Most of my guests did though. Urgh.

I didn’t move off the sofa all day. Literally. Except for the occasional toilet break. People brought me food and I had a remote control. I considered wearing a nappy to make the annoying toilet breaks obselete. And I was grumpy in the extreme. And I couldn’t face dealing with a mollusc juice soaked ruck sack. So I left it in the boot of my car until this morning. Gag.

And the moral of the story is that I am getting too old for this kind of behaviour. And it is very hard to plate up food when you are drunk. And Toilet Duck is a fine agent for stink removal. But thanks for coming guests, it was a brilliant night and I love you all very much even if I did rugby tackle some of you during charades.

And I know that statistically most of you will not be thirty three years old and therefore by definition were not fourteen in 1991. So I will keep this brief and to the point. But Smells Like Teen Spirit is THE anthem of my generation. Of anyone born in the mid to late seventies. It is our God Save the Queen, our Light my Fire our Sergeant Pepper, Mr Brightside or Wonderwall

I had acne, greasy hair and kissed by all accounts like an eel en gelee.

And I sat on the floor in a house in County Antrim and I watched Top of the Pops and was AWED.

Just a wall of pounding NOISE. Pulsing like a heart. Angry and beautiful and yearning and so sad it made you want to cry. And I remember yellows and blues and shouting and words that made no sense. And words that weren’t words. And wanting to punch. And hit. And fight.

He changed all of our lives, Kurt Cobain and more importantly, music. And he couldn’t bear it and shot himself in the face.  I hear that song now and I remember the pubescent angst, embarrassment and pain. An acute ball of tension forms in my gut and a shiver runs down my spine. But by accident of birth or fate or chance it is MY song. Forever.

With the lights out its less dangerous,

Here we are now, entertain us

I feel stupid and contagious

Here we are now, entertain us.

Indeed Sydney, indeed. And as an estimable man of the eighteenth century cloth, one can only surmise that God and his earthly foot soldiers, given half the chance would all enjoy a nice pie.

And who can blame them. You can’t go wrong with a nice pie.

My favourite pie, on balance is my own concoction -chicken, leek, pancetta and sausage ball pie. Ooh, hold up lets keep it proper, I meant of course good old bacon. Or York ham. Because only a knob would take a pie, that quintessential fare of the British working man and put poncy old pancetta in it. Innit.

So some nice streaky bacon. That’s the stuff.

Just giving a smoky undertone, a salty kick to a soft white blanket of heartily seasoned roux. Moist poached chicken. Soft melting leeks and fatty nobbly balls of sausage. A leaf or two of sage and a golden puffy crust. A bowl of bright green, young broad beans, plucked from their grey casings. And mash- whipped with a wooden spoon, worked in with fridge cold cubes of salted butter and white pepper until you have something ephemeral, something magical and so comforting that it will damn near give you a hug and tell you that, Hey. Its OK. You hang in there buddy. You’re doing just fine. And you know what- it happens to lots of guys. Its never happened before and you’ve had a lot on a work. You’ve been STRESSED. Its really no big deal.  Now come here handsome- you keep that chin up- you hear? Have you been working out?

Just really comforting basically. Thanks MASH. You’re the best.

And now, I tell you, thats a hell of a meal. Thats what I want to get my laughing gear round on a moist chilly August evening in SW15.

I like the word moist. Also Mid-Wiffery. Pronounced Mid Whiff-ery. With heavy emphasis on the Wh.

Note from editor. Self edit Luke. Self edit. You don’t have an editor.

So here is a promise, and it is one that I have made before: If you cook a pie for someone, they will like you more. I don’t care if its you son, your husband, your too good for you girlfriend, your old granny or the illicit shag three doors down. Cook a pie tomorrow, watch someone you love break the crust and as that steam bathes their face in savoury goodness, as they shovel forkful after forkful down, they will wonder what they did to deserve you and your lovely pie.

For my non-pancetta pie. I use frozen puff pastry. And do you know what, if you don’t or if you look down at me in any way, then you are reading the wrong blog. I am a chef and I can’t make puff pastry as good as the frozen stuff. Also I have a life and better things to do. Life is too short for making puff pastry. And wrapping presents. But that might be just me. I HATE wrapping presents.

I am also not keen on writing  gram by gram, step by step recipes…… Just have a stab. There is literally nothing bad that can come of it. No sage? use rosemary. No bacon. Don’t worry about it. Lumpy roux? Whisk it more.

So this is how I make my pie.

Buy the best whole chicken that you can afford. Whilst at the meat counter purchase some excellent streaky bacon and some nice butchers sausages with a good high meat content.

Take the skin off your chicken- just pull it off. Wash your hands,grab a sharp knife, get stuck in, hack away and just pull off all that skin. Put skin aside for later. Cover your now naked chicken with cold water, chuck in a carrot, a leek, an onion, maybe a bay leaf or two. Bring to boil and simmer gently for about an hour.

Meanwhile. Slice a couple of leeks, an onion and 4 cloves of garlic. sweat in butter on low heat until soft and tender . Cut your bacon (lets say 200g) into batons and squeeze the meat from your sausages (lets say 4 sausages). Discard the now prophylactic-like skins somewhere that will not cause embarrassment. Form sausage meat into balls. About the size of a tiny elephant or a massive ant.

Now! This bit is important. In a little oil, fry the sausage balls and the bacon batons in a BIG pan- big enough to eventually contain all of your pie filling. When they are all nicely browned and golden, remove from pan, but do not discard fat or sticky bits. Take your chicken skin, liberally salt it and chop it up with a sharp knife into small squares. Add this to the bacon/sausage fat and fry until really crispy. Remove and add to your bacon and sausage.

Now add half a pack of butter to your fat. What a great sentence. The ghost of Jennifer Patterson lives on in me. When it has melted, over a gentle heat start adding plain flour. And gently whisk, amalgamating the flour, the crispy bits and the fats. Keep adding the flour until the mixture is too stiff to whisk and then cook until it starts to smell biscuty. Now add milk, slowly whilst whisking. Keep going until it has the consistency of double cream.

Now its an assembley job. In with the leeks and onion. bacon bits, crispy skin and sausage balls. Remove your chicken from it’s stock and take the meat off the bones. chop to whatever size you like and add to your mixture. Add some chopped up sage leaves and lots of salt and pepper. If it looks too thick you can loosen with some chicken stock.

And thats your pie filling- pour it into a pie dish, cover with puff, egg wash , prick and chuck in the oven at 210 for 35 minutes.

Use the stock for soup or similiar.

For me cooking is all about the crispy bits. Never waste them, deglaze, use the same pan, whatever. But I never want to come round and see soggy crispy bits in your dirty dish water.

Make a pie for some friends soon and see if they don’t love you for it.

.

It’s tempting to stop writing now and just leave that hanging. I wonder what kind of comments I would get. You don’t need the details, we were students. There were some japes and hi-jinks and we punched each other in the face, quite hard. With no clothes on. On a pier. In the middle of the night. That is all.

And we were reminiscing about this last night so I thought that I would share.

And this morning he asked me to be Godfather to his son. And I nearly burst with happiness.

So, Benny boy, I love you man and Tom and Dave and Joe and Nick and Nick and Pete and the other men in my life. I love you guys. And some of them are going to find that really uncomfortable. Which pleases me.

Last night Dave and I went to The Dukes Head, on the river, in Putney to wait for Ben who was photographing a wedding next door. Take a minute now to go and have a look at his website- it’s my only link- on the right. Do come back though. Dum di dum. Done? Its good isn’t it. Although he’s not thirty, like it says in the profile, he is thirty four. And the years have not been kind. But he is a brilliant photographer and communicator – get him for your wedding. Or event, or whatever.

Anyway he turned up at ten with eight thousand pounds worth of camera equipment and went straight to the bar. And then spent ten minutes be-moaning London beer prices and plastic pint glasses. And then, presumably in protest, drank six of them very quickly and made me order for him and pay for, a large meat feast pizza which he ate in my living room whilst telling me a stupid story about growing a chilli plant in his green house that turned out to be a sycamore tree.

Or some such nonsense. And that three hour period, with Dave and Ben was the most fun I have had for months. Just sitting outside a pub, mocking the young-uns and their fancy clothes, moaning about flat beer and the price of a pint and fitting like a pair of comfy old trainers. That you once punched in the face. Naked.

Dave was present at the naked pier fight, but he was running away from a bloke who was not only wearing clothes, but also a swastika tattoo on his neck. It was that kind of night. How we laughed.

And here are some food facts about my friends. For of course, this is a food blog.

The three of us, and Tom once built a fire on the banks of a loch in Scotland. We cast our flies in the balmy evening sun, drinking beers and talking about girls. And we pulled out brown trout, flapping and glistening in the dying rays. I gutted and scaled them and stuffed them with handfuls of wild garlic leaves and chives that were growing nearby. And you can keep your El Bulli, your French Laundry or your Fat Duck because that trout, stiff with rigor mortis and cooked on our fire was the best thing I have ever eaten.

I was once cooking some chilli in our Earls Court ‘batchelor pad’ and Joe came and asked for a taste. I had anticipated this and had secretly loaded up a spoon with neat ‘insanity sauce’. Joe head-butted the wall and I think that I actually nearly killed him.

Nicks favourite food is cabbage and bisto. He once said that eating was boring and if he could take a pill in the morning instead of eating, he would. Stupid Greek.

Dave and I have done two ten bird roasts together. Fnaar fnaar. He is also my sous chef of choice. Sorry Tom.

The other Nick ate some pea and ham soup that I had made and projectile vomited immediately. I have never lived it down.

Tom actually enjoys a ‘Harvester’ And also lied about the providence of a spag bol, brought from home when we were at Uni. He said that he had cooked it. Ben noticed the hexagonal-cut carrots and smelt a rat. Thanks Jane.

And we’ve all been through a lot over the years. At least two of us have very nearly died, we have had family traumas, friends who died far too young and funerals. We have dealt with pain, depression and hurt. But my life is immeasurably richer, inherently more colourful, fun and absurd because of my man friends. And there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for them or indeed now, for my two bloody brilliant Godsons.

And I get mouth boredom a lot too. Mouth boredom is when you have had, for example, a massive roast dinner at three thirty on a Sunday afternoon and still, despite your stuffed gut, crave a dopiaza at nine. You’re not hungry per se but the thought of chilli, ginger and coriander dancing a jig on your tonsils is too divine to ignore.

And speaking of which….(crowbar? what crowbar?)

……I went for lunch by myself at a newish Bombay style cafe called Dishoom on St Martin’s Lane near Covent Garden.

I eat out by myself quite a lot. For several reasons. Firstly I have a job that affords me time off when others are working and secondly, I like it. I love it in fact. Is it too far to say I prefer it? No. I prefer eating out alone to eating out in the company of others.

Good God, that’s a thing to say. I am going to die in a bed-sit. Where I will lie in my own putrefying filth until the neighbours complain about the smell. And will then get scraped up off the lino and whacked through a municipal crematorium in a chip board coffin. Ahh dear… poor  ‘eats alone man’. Passers by will nod sagely as the black smoke plumes into the cloudy sky. He ate alone and he died alone. Tut tut. Such a shame. They needed a crane to move the body out you know….

I’m er.. only joking. I am um.. very sociable. And the scenario above will NEVER happen. You hear me. NEVER….But I do love eating alone- you can order what you like, you can people watch, you can read a paper, a book or do whatever you damn well like. What you should not do is whip out a branded BBC note book and pen in the vain attempt of looking like a proper food critic. Tick. Years ago. But I was an arse, finding my way in the world, years ago. And running the BBC staff canteen. Ha! Idiot!

Anyway. Dishoon is near Covent Garden Tube station. Which as a rule is not somewhere I frequent unless I absolutely have too. Strange, presumably mentally impaired men and women in top hats, painted silver, standing on a box…..and wait for it…. not moving. Now that’s magic…. I saw Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House last year and I ended up in Road House (awful Jeremy Kyle of Night Clubs) on a blind date a few years ago. Which is an interesting anthropomorphic example of how eclectic is, a. Covent Garden and b. My love life. Both evenings, interestingly, ended poorly. But for different reasons.

For goodness sake man, Dishoom. OK. It’s very good but not brilliant. I like the room, it is relaxing and pleasant in both appearance and ambiance. The staff are well-drilled courteous and professional. And there are lots of things on the menu that I wanted to eat. So I did.

But not before I had ordered a chilli pomegranate Martini. By myself. At lunch time. That, people is how to eat alone with confidence. With my St. Martini, I had some unbearably moreish ‘Cafe Crisps’- the spicing upon which I see is being debated by online foodies across London. It was a bit tangy and a bit spicy. And red. And possibly contained crack cocaine. Then calamari that was good- especially the crispy tentacles. The main carapace seemed less inclined to crisp up, but was flavourful and zingy. The lamb chops were OK. But in all honesty not as good as the ones at Lahore Karahi in Tooting that I blogged about in May last year- at a third of the price. The black daal lacked complexity but was tasty. A simple pinch of salt would have worked wonders. The garlic naan was the best I’ve ever had.

And then I asked for the bill. But instead of asking for the bill I said ‘And actually, I’ll just try the Murgh Malai too and a Thums Up please.’

A Thums Up is ‘Coke- Bombay style’ and instantly transported me back, not to the days of the Raj but the Soda Stream in the pantry of my parents old house. Murgh Malai is charred and spiced chicken which was nice enough but improved immeasurably with my own addition of tamarind dipping sauce.

And then I asked for the bill again. And it was £36.50. Which is a lot for one person on a tuesday lunch time. That’s not Dishooms fault- they are incredibly inexpensive for what and where they are. Its my fault for ordering enough food for two people. All of which I scoffed and then licked the bowls out. Because I am a greedy pig.

And am now going to the gym.

It simply cannot be improved upon and when I hear it, tears flow down my cheeks and I just, simply. Stop.

I am no music expert. I certainly don’t know why. I just like the sound of it. It makes me feel nervous and my heart beats faster. Like before a date. I have it now and I can barely type.

On paper it looks crap- Mozart’s Serenade no.10 in B Flat Major. But thats not evocative is it? Nothing there to stir your soul or arouse the passions in your loins. The ‘Amadeus’ script writers had it about right- Salieri, in bewilderment, in awe and in pain said of it thus:

On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse – bassoons and basset horns – like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly – high above it – an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I’d never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God.’

And that’s it. That oboe note. Filled with longing, such unfulfillable longing. Think about those words, think about how unfulfillable longing would feel. And listen to the first 45 seconds of Serenade no 10 in B Flat Major. And know that it is perfect.

News Flash.

**Too deep and poncey for a ‘food’ blog**…… Eurgh and not funny either. Thank God…. reverie broken by the awful randomness of putting 4 days worth of music on shuffle. Thank you Jay-Z and that dirt on your shoulder.

Perfection in food is probably impossible isn’t it? Especially, as I’ve said many times before if Chef gets his grubby mits on it. Because eating is so subjective. What you put in your mouth is part of it. But the company, the venue, your mood- everything conspires to create one unique moment, one experience in time that no one else by definition will ever experience . One mans perfection is another mans poison.

An oyster is near perfection. The first Jersey Royal of the season. Tom Yam soup with a hangover. A piece of Jamon fat, melting on your tongue. All of these things can be close to perfection. Can a three star meal be perfect? I really don’t know. Is Thomas Keller the creative equal of Mozart? Is Heston? Ferran? Can food bend your mind like music can? I don’t know. And I’m a food person. Not a music person. But nothing that I have ever eaten has ever made me feel like I feel when I hear that one long oboe note and its unfulfillable longing.