We Don't Need Jamie, Hugh Nor Gordon.

At the risk of sounding a little like a broken record my life’s re-undergone another shift as Beck once more returns from her travels. (I quite like that cliché “like a broken record” even though it’s not strictly correct, the record is scratched surely, not broken because then it wouldn’t be playing at all, and, anyway, I wonder how long it’ll survive in the digital music age.) Beck arrived at Heathrow airport on Saturday morning with a light sprinkling of snow still clinging to her boots, a half-chewed caribou carcass peeking out from her flight-bag and a twenty yard stare akin to shell shock in eyes. This is what spending a day and a half on a plane does to you, obviously. Within minutes of staggering through the front door her luggage is emptied out across the lounge floor and then scattered like fragments of memory around the house, exiting the building requires vaulting a surprisingly tall suitcase, and then she was asleep, completely conked out, not to stir for another seventeen hours.

This leaves me sitting at the downstairs table, the stereo turned down low trying not to disturb her, staring at the computer screen and thinking about the effect of distance on relationships. In particular about how the tools we use to communicate have an influence over what we say. Email is very different to a telephone conversation and that itself can never have the intimacy of a face to face discussion. It’s all in the eyes.

Beck is back and, for the foreseeable future, not going anywhere again. So, for the first time in nearly six months I have to get used to properly living with someone and not just occasionally having a rather messy houseguest. In a way I’ve almost gotten used to keeping her at arm’s length.

Obviously I mean the arm of a deity, or a giant or some other mythical creature which I’m unaware of but is capable of reaching from London to Canada.

Her return does at least mean that I can return to eating.

That is to say, clearly I have been eating whilst she’s away. I haven’t seen her in two and a half weeks and whilst I’m not too keyed up on the starvation process I’m pretty certain I’d be dead by now otherwise. And it’s not as though I can’t cook. When she is here I usually do most of the cooking, it’s just that for me alone I can’t be arsed.

Beck is what, I suppose, you would call a foodie. She loves flavours, textures, ingredients, how they all combine together. She likes to experience three or more courses delicately balanced and working in harmony. She can taste a dish and say “H’mm, a touch more oregano, perhaps?” I’m not sure I even know what oregano tastes like - I certainly can’t distinguish it in particular from amongst other flavours. I can tell if something tastes nice, or even if it could taste better and I can usually make a lucky guess as to what would improve it, but isolate one single flavour from a mish-mash of others? No chance. My palate just isn’t sophisticated enough.

This is it, you see, to me food is essentially stuff that you need in order to keep yourself alive. It’s fuel. I enjoy nice food, but really what I like is the social activity that surrounds eating. The seeing of friends and family, talking and drinking and living. For Beck though, I suspect, the primary pleasure is in the taste.

So whilst she’s away I’ll make big vats of chilli con carne, tomato and mushroom pasta sauce, beef stew, chickpea curry or whatever and eat the same thing for four days on the trot. No variety. No thought. Eating becomes something to accompany my absorption of the daily news. The only person who could possibly interact with me is Jon Snow.

I taught myself how to cook at university. Having had my initial attempts to feed a visiting Beck more or less laughed at, I borrowed female housemates’ cook books (thanks, Charlotte) and tried to understand how it all worked. I got better, She started to actually enjoy about half of what I served rather than eating it out of pure desperation.


When we moved in together Beck was definitely the superior cook. I was just about competent with a good line in curries and sausage ‘n’ mash. The ritual of a meal, a bottle of wine, at home just the two of us became a significant part of our relationship. An opportunity for no distractions, to chat about things other than what some git did today at work. They’re like mini-dates. Somewhere along the years, though, I seemed to completely overtake her. (Of course it’s a competition - life is a competition.) It’s practice, habit. We went from her doing most of the cooking to doing half and half, to me doing the most, to at some points, like last year, it being a couple of months in-between Beck actually cooking a meal.

She says I’ve stolen her powers, like a psycho-thief coming to her at night and sucking them out of her brain. I like this analogy. The sucking aspect seems particularly appropriate. But in truth it’s the same as anything, the more you do it the better you become, if you stop doing it regularly it takes a little more thought and attention. It becomes less instinctive.

I like cooking for others. I like the process of being in the kitchen. Chopping, slicing, grating, sprinkling, steaming, flash-frying. A finish with a flourish. I like seeing it all fit together and I really love seeing people enjoying something I‘ve prepared.

There’s also a practicality issue. I don’t like eating too late in the evening. I can’t sleep, or to be more accurate I do fall promptly asleep but then awake in a couple of hours and that’s it. My eyes locked open till morning. Beck on the other hand will, at one in the morning, quite happily eat a big bowl of rice based food followed by a chocolate mouse and sleep like a babe. So, if I want to eat earlier, I have to cook. Plus Beck finds it impossible to cook anything in less than an hour nor to use anything less than every single item of crockery and cutlery. I can make most things in about half hour - that’s time in the kitchen, if I’ve left something in the oven or on the hob for half the afternoon it doesn’t count. Plus I’ll do it using one knife, one spoon, a peeler and two pans. Who else cooks a sauce, for example, in one pan, gets half way though and then transfers it to a smaller pan? Under what circumstances do you need two graters?

Okay, so that’s probably my own fault for having two graters, but when we moved in together we each owned one. Six years later we’re still arguing over which is superior.

Don’t get me wrong, mind. You’re all more than welcome to come round for dinner at some point but I’m not promising cooking of the highest standards. I'm far from perfect. Thinking about other things I managed to put carrots in a risotto tonight. Trust me, it doesn’t work. I have a limited repertoire in deserts, but as we’ll only have these on special occasions I suppose that doesn’t matter. I can’t bake. Scones, cakes, anything like is never going to quite right.

Things are going to change, though, so she says. Shell take on more responsibility for general housework and for cooking in particular. She’s finished her MA and spent six months roving. Work’s piling up for me and I, apparently, need her support.

If it happens, it’ll be nice. Less pressure on me to produce an exciting yet balanced menu each week. She can titilate her own taste buds; kind of like a form of masturbation I should expect.

If it happens I’ll have to see if I can get out of doing all the washing up as well, see if we can cut out that uncanny habit of remembering something really urgent that needs doing whenever it’s her turn to do the washing up but in fact just turns out to be ringing one of her sisters for a gossip. That’d be really good.