FOOD DIARY
I feel very lucky to work in a restaurant. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong. The hours are long, the step count is high and every so often you will encounter someone who makes you question if humanity should continue to exist, but it has a certain pull. The camaraderie, pace and general buzz all seem to make the hospitality industry rather addictive, but none of these things contribute to my sense of gratefulness as much as The Food. Not all restaurants are born equal. There are some places I don’t particularly want to eat in and certainly don’t want to work in, but for the past near three years, I’ve waited tables in Italian eateries and been exposed to some extremely well-crafted, creative and all-round delicious dishes. I’m continuously blown away by the power of food and how with the simplest ingredients and bit of care, you can make magic.
With that in mind, here is a written account of everything I’ve eaten so far today.
01:42am - Marks and Spencers Count on Us Chicken Tikka Masala and Basmati Rice
My first technical meal of the day was in the wee small hours of the morning when, upon returning from a thirteen hour shift, I tore into the ready meal that I had purchased hours earlier and - with absolutely zero regard for the cooking instructions - heated it up on the hob. Selecting the Count on Us chicken tikka masala instead of the regular chicken tikka masala was a mistake. Not an accident, just the wrong choice. I used to be much more into that whole scene, the count on us/slimmers/be good to yourself guys used to be mates of mine. Not great mates in the end. Nothing against them, it was more a me problem. Sure they were a little dull, but I was in the friendship for the wrong reasons. Topically, the first time I ever encountered the concept of a ‘food diary’ was in my first year of secondary school when we were instructed to keep one for a day and then work out each other’s calorie intake, a frankly terrible idea. I’m less cripplingly self-conscious nowadays and gratefully this choice wasn’t dictated by numbers, I just thought that this specific microwave curry would be the better option for a directly pre-bed meal. However one little pinkie dip and I knew it wasn’t going to cut it, so I added butter and - for a lack of cream in the fridge - some of my flatmate’s Skyr. I ate the dish in bed and then promptly fell asleep.
AMENDMENT:
I’m so sorry, but I realise that I’ve told a lie. The first thing I actually ate yesterday was an Aldi multiseed cracker at approximately 01:39am while I was waiting for my curry to heat up.
13:56pm - Bánh Mì
Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t all that hungry when I woke up. I had a coffee and a pint of water and got on with some work and then suddenly I was ravenous. I’m a bit strapped for cash at the moment so obviously I decided to go out and buy lunch. What I really wanted was a Dom’s Sub. It’s on Hackney Road which, without giving away my home address, was further than I was willing to walk. I checked if they deliver and they do, but even in my financial recklessness I knew that paying almost £6 to have something brought to my front door was too far and I needed to go outside. There’s a little Sunday market round the corner from my flat. It’s very cute. Lots of dogs, lots of babies and lots of opportunities to spend £15-20. I was in the late stages of recovery from a night out on Friday so was instantly overwhelmed by sunlight and choice. Thankfully the first port of call was the shop for crisps and a Diet Coke which is always a grounding experience. It’s important to note that I didn’t go to the Co-op, partly because I want you to know I shop local, but mainly because this shop sells Lays crisps instead of Walkers crisps and I really would like to hear a more vocal discussion in the food and drink industry - and beyond - about just how superior Lays are. I’m talking specifically about the ready salted ones or, if you’re a Lay, just ‘salted.’ The etymological reasoning for the use of ‘ready’ in the UK is not known to me, however I will be googling it once I’ve finished writing this. Lays are so much saltier. They also feel oiler, but in a really good way. They’re not oily, they just feel like they’ve seen more oil. At least 30% of them will be all curled up or folded in half. I don’t know the science behind why those ones taste better, they just do. I feel cheated when I open a packet of crisps and there are no curlers in the bag. The downside about Lays is that you only seem to be able to get them in the big bags here. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing - once again, they are delicious - but sometimes it can be a bit much. You either have to resign yourself to eating the full bag and then being really thirsty or, if you’re lucky like I was today, you can share them with a hungover flatmate. Of course there is secret option number three which is where you eat some and then put the bag away, perhaps with a small clip on it to keep the crisps fresh, to be enjoyed at a later date. I didn’t include this as a main option however because I have genuinely never done it. I left having secured the goods plus a bag of strawberry pencils and headed for the Bánh Mì van. I don’t think it has name, it’s just a pink van that says BÁNH MÌ on it. I had black pepper pork strip loin with duck pate and coriander, mint, carrot, cucumber and what I think was pickled daikon plus whatever sauce was on offer all crammed into a perfectly crusty yet soft roll. Spicy, sweet, salty and fatty with a lovely bit of acid from the daikon to lift everything. It rocked my world.
14:17pm - Salted Lays and Strawberry Pencils
I’m playing a bit fast and loose with the timings here because the crisps and the bánh mì got consumed simultaneously. It was massive and as I said before it was a big bag of crisps, so it took me a while to get through it all. The strawberry pencils rounded it off exceptionally. Excitingly, I managed to make a clean incision up the length of the red gummy outer layer and remove it, leaving the more fondant-like white centre exposed and creating two pristine yet separate sweeties. At this point, this was my biggest achievement of the day.
14:45pm - Half of a Cantaloupe Melon
For balance.
17:03pm - Baklava
After lamenting about not getting anything sweet from my trip to the shop - the strawberry pencils apparently didn’t count in this case - I remembered that I had impulse bought some baklava while I was at the counter. This felt like a real triumph, far superior to the strawberry pencil dissection. I’m very partial to a corner shop baklava. In my limited experience I find that as a general rule, the less structurally sound the packaging, the better the baklava. ‘Better’ here is of course subjective. I like mine with a bit of crispiness still going on in the pastry layers. I tend to find this most often when the packaging is a polystyrene tray wrapped in cling film. That’s pretty much a guaranteed winner, only to be topped by the goods being handed over lose in a paper bag which is always, always the best. Today’s was in a plastic container. Structurally strong packaging meant a less structured baklava, the syrup having begun the melting process of the foundation layers. Did I care? Absolutely not. The surprise element of this baklava alone was enough to make it a 10/10 bite.
That’s it for today. I might make some beans on toast later although I’m not sure if we have any beans. I should probably go back to the shop to get some broccoli or something. Luckily for me, I’m back at work tomorrow.
