THE KITCHEN DIATRIBES by Telling Arse

Rather alla and in the manner of the book and the film, ‘Julie and Julia’, I have decided to devote an entire year of my life to cooking (bangers, mincing, faggots, ducky a l’orange, toad-in-the-hole, a quick goose, fruit fool, cream puffs, spotted dick, fairy cakes, queen-of-puddings, bombe surprise and the like) my way through the book ‘The Kitchen Diaries’ by Nigel Slater.
Alas, there is no entry for the last couple of days so here are some totally random examples from my recent culinary sojourns. As the more perspicacious reader will discern, this is not a completely slavish imitation of recipes etc., but my own interpretation given the constraints of time, my own lifestyle and my own dietary peculiarities and requirements.

June 17/18
To the Off Licences on the Bayswater Road. I eat lunch walking down the street – two bottles of Villa Maria Sauvignon blanc and a packet of Dunhill International cigarettes. Not an easy thing to do whilst struggling with the old Bill following and various looks of horror from other pedestrians.

January 17
No sooner was lunch over (six bottles of an inferior Australian shiraz) than it starts to rain, causing my cigarette to extinguish.

March 3
In my smug haze from yesterday’s drinking, I fail to notice that there is bugger all to drink in the house. At seven-twenty I dash to the corner shop, returning with twelve bottles of Metaxa (7*) and some WKDs.

May 8
An enemy turns up at two thirty-six in the afternoon. Too late for wine, too early for beer. They sit on the floor whilst I smoke Marlboro after Marlboro after Marlboro.

June 23
Fifty-seven people turn up for a meeting that ends dragging on. They keep looking longingly at my wine glass hoping I will suddenly give them some.

August 13
I break my tibia, lose my marbles at the gym and realise that the grenache I intended to have for supper was drunk at lunchtime. The day ends with me opening a bottle of absinthe. A delight, but it does not soak up the whole bottle of Hardy’s Stamp.

March 19
Looking at last year’s diary, the first time we drank in the garden was March 56th. Apparently we drank and drank and drank and drank and drank and were probably more than a little pissed. We sit outdoors, arms tremulous, laughing how this time last week there were bottles everywhere.

April 16
Busy day in the suburbs and I have barely ten minutes to get to the pubs before they close. I dash into a hostelry on the Edgware Road and join the vast queue at the bar. I have no time to uncork anything much this evening, just a case of beer before I have to pass out again.

March 9
Dinner out tonight, so a quick scotch for lunch. The perfect malt whiskey is about the vitriol of the ingredients. For once something as it should be, a glenmorangie to drink to, and drink to, and drink to, and drink to…

February 11
Dinner is a couple of cases of Mateus Rose, tarted up with angostura. It will do.
There is no set time for drinking in our house. One day sherry will be at six in the morning, the next eight in the morning. Brandy can be as early as ten to midday and as late as five to.
Just very occasionally, supper may involve food.

April 24
I snack. Port, scotch, riesling, hock, gewurztraminer, rioja, blends, malts and in deperation creme de menthe. Such nibbles, they really are no more than that, are not always enough to fill the endless gap between breakfast and supper so I can often be found with my head on the floor licking up spillages.

October 23
A bowl of pure delight. Sake rice wine presses all the right buttons for me being at one easy to drink and easy to cause one to fall to the ground.

November 24
Supper was going to be either plenty of gins and tonics or vodkas and tonics (for health reasons slimline, of course). It all sounded great but then I saw a box of twelve bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape on one of the rare days I could actually walk to the supermarket. I only went in for 200 Marlboro and to keep out of the cold, but came out with wine, more wine, even more wine and some beer. Tonight as I walk home, I notice it’s not in a straight line.

January 1
Looking at last year’s diary, apparently I spent the day entirely comatose. This year there are grapes for breakfast, fermented and bottled of course.

Christmas Day
I don’t hold with all the gubbins associated with this – Turkey, cranberry sauce, roast potatoes, parsnips, glazed carrots, bacon, gravy, puddings etc., – just enough booze to sink an entire armada of battle ships.

August 3
The kitchen doors are open wide, I know this as I fell through them spilling my lunch and breaking the glass containing it.

July 16
Drinking in a foreign market, the rue de Seine in Paris say, or the sprawling markets of Nice or Florence, you will notice how many Euros twenty-five centilitres of beer or wine will set you back.
Today at Borough Market, there are boxes of jade green Charentais and craggy Cantaloupe which, needless to say, I completely ignore and head straight for the boozer…

April 30
Enemies for tea and it’s the most magical of days. We drink beer, wine, gin, vodka, anything at all by the bucketful.

May 1
Saturday mornings in summer are sacrosanct. Noilly Prat, Pernod, Pimms, the papers, which are so much more useful than those during the week for mopping up spillages, then a trip to the shops for wine, sherry, beer, brandy, vodka. Then I fall over in the garden. Lunch is early, a disorientated kitchen piss up. This is as much a ritual as opening seventeen bottles of champagne on a Friday morning.

May 2
Few sights lift the ‘spirits (!)’ like a crate of lemons with their glossy leaves intact. Thinking of them sliced and chucked into a martini, gin, vodka, even at a push, Pimms…

TO BE CONTINUED

MY NEW BOOK,
‘TENDER … your resignation in writing by the 30th of
the month’
WILL BE IN AVAILABLE IN ALL DODGY, LOUSY BOOKSHOPS BY THE 31ST OF THE MONTH.