Cooking Dynamo

I am betrayéd.

Having spent the most of this week floundering about watching sitcoms, listening to podcasts, reading books, playing games and gorging hideously on any foodstuff I can be arsed to put into my mouth, I, perhaps unsurprisingly, find myself in a creative slump.

I don't know whether the decadent activities listed above took place because of this slump, or whether the slump has been brought on by the activities, in all probability it is a symbiotic mix of the two. I have destroyed my eyes by staring for hours at my laptop screen, slogging my way through a gruelling and brain numbing re-design of The ACRE website, brought on by needing to incorporate the amazing new logos designed for us by Heather of HLW Design onto the site. It was fiddly work for me, as I am fairly clueless about such things, and even with the aid of iWeb (the web design equivalent of a tricycle with stabilisers) it took me many long hours. Dragging and clicking. Urgh.

But with bleeding eyes I can take solace that the website now looks far more professional, with many thanks to Heather for designing the logos and the banners, and for not complaining over the vagueness of my ideas or the tardiness of my replies. They are class.

The website is teal as well now. I fucking love teal.

So back to the betrayal.

Having been stuck in a fug, unable to force out any of the latent creativity I have sloshing around inside myself somewhere, it was there last time I looked at least, I decided to be pro-active and make myself something to eat, rather than just stare at a blank text window gurning in anxiety and frustration.

The "meal" I settled on was slapdash, a mix of unusual plate-fellows. However, I learnt everything I know from mawkish idealistic RPGs and superheroic epic tales, and I figured that a ragtag band of culinary heroes would do better than a tactically sound, well gelled team. I was wrong.

Not only was I wrong, but I was also blighted by a plague of misfortunes throughout the cooking process.

The backbone of my meal was to be a cod fillet in breadcrumbs. My meat preference is usually chicken, but given that I need to kickstart my brain, I figured some "brain-food" would be the smartest option. I slapped the fillet into a baking tray, and ferried it into the oven. No problem, I am an oven veteran. It was a flawless move.

I am a huge fan of potato, but given that chips, or some variant thereof, makes up the vast majority of my potato intake, I decided I would change tack, and go slightly exotic. Microwave mash in no way fills the bill in terms of 'exoticity', but that's what I cooked. I say 'cooked'. This pot of microwave mash is said to serve two, and though i am something of a pig, I decided I would abstain from eating the entire lot. However, cutting a patty of refrigerated mash potato in half ranks quite high up in my league of 'Pathetic Things I Did Today'. Having to move the wad of mash into a different bowl also scores highly. In a world where people still starve, I cannot find another human being willing to split mash with me.

I would have been happy with my plate of mash and fish. I decided to compliment the meal with some apple squash. As it turns out, the apple squash was the only item whose consumption went to plan. it was lovely squash.

The mash reacted badly to being microwaved in a different container. It grew a burnt crusty skin around itself, which was off-putting, to say the least. And fucking disgusting, to react dramatically. I was disgruntled, and returned to the oven to reclaim what I imagined would be the saving grace of my mealtime, a delicious piece of fish to offset the filthy mash.

But oh, no. Oh very no.

I had been tricked by my father's penchant for keeping food in non-labelled freezer bags. What I had though to be a heavenly cod in breadcrumbs was, in fact, something altogether more sinister. It is said that the devil makes work for idle hands, and I imagine that the work those idle hands undertook resulted in the invention of this satanic invention.

Chicken kiev.

My entire day lay in ruins on my plate. My tears of humiliation lubricated the crusty mash, the chicken kiev postured damply by its side, like the lewd length of moist meat that it was.

I turned to some simple bread and butter for solace. Its purity and simplicity washed away the surface torment of the freakish mash and the licentious chicken kiev, restoring some measure of dignity to my evening.

I am clean again, but I can't be certain that the scars will ever fade away.

www.theacre.net

@adamgilder