On these trips home, for reasons that I can’t fathom, I have become “the fly-in cook”. For the last five years I’ve crossed the Atlantic to feed the five thousand. Cooking in Aged Parents kitchen is not easy. First, as a loyal card-carrying employee of the Midlands Electricity Board, Aged Parent refused to have gas in the house. This means his offspring must master the dastardly infrared electric cooker. Passive aggressive is the only word for it: the menace refuses to heat, then when your back is turned it boils, burns and charcoals everything in sight. Second, all my recipes are in New York where we function in Fahrenheit not Celsius, and then there’s the wretched convection adjustment to calculate in. Not to mention Aged Parents love affair with Delia, who in my humble opinion -- as a professional biochemist -- can’t cook to save her life. I cleave to the Elizabeth David school myself: all recipes can be greatly improved by ditching the herbs and throwing in a glass of wine.
Over the years I’ve learnt to tame the cooker beast. But the real spanner in the works is Aged Parent and his cantankerous ways. Aged Parent has a burning desire to die with only one knife and fork left in the house. He has a great need to rid himself of all earthly goods. Oxfam has benefitted greatly from this tic and the local birds are the fattest flock of starlings in East Cheshire. I have been caught out enough times now -- missing some key ingredient like salt or flour or a rolling pin -- that before I leave New York for JFK I go online to Ocado and order everything, bar the kitchen sink, to be delivered before I land. Still, this doesn’t stop Aged Parent from taking advantage of the time difference to eat some item critical for culinary success, like the cheese plate that he took a fancy to last Xmas, or, more often, stashing it somewhere, never to be seen again, all the while claiming Ocado forgot to deliver it.
Is Aged Parent grateful for all of this cooking – not a bit. He moans about how much food he’ll be left with after the visit is over and how long it will take him and the starlings to eat their way through it. Worst of all, in his desire to be rid of all life’s shackles and accoutrement, he’s taken to throwing away any booze that’s left after we depart. My siblings and I have tried to hide it away in unlikely places so that we can count on a nip in future visits. But Aged Parent must scour the house because it’s always gone. He found it under the stairs -- where he must have got down on his ancient hands and knees to drag it out -- and he found it in the shed. Of course, it’s entirely possible that he drinks the lot himself to recover from our visits. For a while, when he was learning how to order his groceries online, we shared the same password and, while checking that he knew what he was doing in this digital world, I found myself privy to his substantial weekly Jonnie Walker orders. He claimed they were “on offer” and that he only bought them by the crate-load because he had to get his order up to qualify for free delivery. Aged parent is quite the master fibber.
Anyway, we are never sure if he likes our rowdy get togethers or not. But we like it, so he doesn’t really get a say in the matter. When the Morris clan assembles we make a lot of noise, Aged Parent removes his hearing aids and hides in his bedroom, and we get in the kitchen and cook. That is, I cook. My brother-in-law, “The Soul of Patience”, claims to be my obedient slave in this enterprise, but, under the guise of Sous Chef, he abuses his position to gain access to the cooking sherry and consumes vast amounts of liquor while peeling the odd carrot. And as for DDS, who, by the way, is certified not only as incurably insane but also as a fully qualified chef, -- she languishes on the sofa waiting for the “CRISE de NERFS” to happen. The “CRISE de NERFS” is always caused by the fact that Aged Parent has disposed of, consumed, or left to rot, at least one vital ingredient. I am sure that he and DDS conspire to bring this about. As soon as she arrives he pretends to be frail and complains how terrible it’s been to go shopping with the Chef. She encourages this, pampers, pets and plays the “good daughter” to the ungrateful old goat, and then she waits, knowingly, on the sofa for the moment when the doors start banging and shouts of “where’s the damn flour” or “what did he do with the bloody vinegar” reach a certain volume. Then, in she breezes, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and asks, “is everything is under control?” Of course she doesn’t lift a finger until you are reduced to begging. And only then, when the roast for ten is burning, or the gravy is tar, or smoke is bellowing out the back door, does she roll up her sleeves and transform herself into the TOTAL TYRANT that she was born to be. Let me tell you, Pol Pot takes lessons from my sister. Commands are issued: MUSTARD she cries. We scuttle to obey. Then HERBS DE PROVENCE she’ll scream, or WOUCESTERSHIRE SAUCE. The Soul of Patience, who by this point is usually so inebriated that he can hardly stand, is treated abominably: MICROWAVE THIS, WARM THOSE PLATES, STIR THAT. Ours is not to question why -- no insubordination is tolerated in the ranks -- otherwise, and it has happened so we know, she’ll flounce out of the kitchen, and we’ll be back to trying to rustle up a substitute for eggs in an omelette.
This trip was no exception. There I was, beating through the rain with the umbrella for the third time to the local supermarket, the one that catering to old fogies has never heard of an olive, trying to put together two three-course meals for ravenous flesh-eating siblings and a vegetarian-in-law. Aged Parent was being uncooperative and kept insisting that there was nothing wrong with thawing out a few of his “Wiltshire Farm” frozen dinners to feed the ravenous horde and what was all the fuss about. As Aged Parent eats like a bird he thinks we should all do the same and because he has no teeth that means we would be on gruel all week.
I decided to start the night before Bro and DDS were to descend. The kitchen to myself, I set about to beat the stove into submission. I smote it with two soups and a Bolognese large enough that Aged Parent could freeze down enough bird-like portions to get him through to June, a Goulash for supper the next day and a Ratatouille for the vegetarian. In the morning I slathered the bird in bacon and got it in the oven, baked two apple pies – one for those with teeth and another for those without, and while in pastry mode slapped together a quiche for good measure, then sat down and had a fortifying sherry. Big Bro arrived and was put to work hauling in the chairs from the garage and setting the table. This he does well. But, when tasked with “decorating the soup”, a certain mental paralysis ensued that required he first break open the wine and give this foreign concept some thought. The Soul of Patience had deserted his post – his excuse for going AWOL this year was “staying home to feed the cats” when in truth he’d “had enough of driving the old bag around Romsey the weekend before”. Despite his absence, things were going smoothly. That is until the point when DDS came through the door. Then, they got seriously out of hand. The apple pies were brown but the chicken wasn’t, the cooker had a midday power surge and incinerated the gravy. DDS looked at my sweaty brow with a little smirk and waited. Not until I pointed out that her “divine intervention” was necessary to save us from Aged Parents 91 year-old packet of BISTO, did she spring into action.
And then she was off, like a racehorse at the starting post, screaming MUSTARD, HONEY, ESSENCE OF MUSHROOM, HERBS DE PROVENCE. I slaved to keep up. Bro emerged from the dining room announcing “one for the chef”. As I reached for the glass the LITTLE MINX seeing her opportunity to dominate claimed this was now her due, swiped it from his hand and downed the lot. At this, my sister-in-law, "The Only Sane Member of our Family", sensing the need to intervene to prevent sororicide, found where Aged Parent had hidden the plates and took charge of the “dishing out”. At last we sat down to eat. Aged Parent, resuming the role of patriarch, gave a magnanimous "Toast to The Chef(s)", we all fought to claim credit for the gravy, Bro proclaimed his soup decoration to be the artistic post-modern masterpiece of the century, and a merry feast was had by all in Congleton once more!
