Easter 2020 is here and, regardless of what denomination and what specific label and meaning there is in this weekend, no one can be entirely disregard the current context, which prevents many of us from being with friends and family. Since I’m hoping that we may be out of lockdown by autumn, I’m thinking I should hijack the significance and symbolism of Thanksgiving (which is more or less the same regardless whether you mark the day in October or November). Beyond an opportunity to be with friends and family and reminisce together about what you are thankful for (I’m not/not reflecting here on how we got there in terms of an excuse for the holiday - I know that I’m always grateful for the extra time off, and I’ll leave it at that), it is above everything an opportunity to #makegoodfood.

So, for the purpose of this post, I want to pretend that this is what Easter/Passover/Ramadan are all about. Now, food has never been a significant part of my life beyond sustenance+. Sustenance, because we all need it, + because my situation in life allows me to approach this with a degree of comfort and choice - even if it sustenance is the object, it does not mean that I would rob myself of the type of quality I normally seek in my other endeavours.

I do want eating to be a good and enjoyable experience, and so eating with friends is ever a pleasure - my closest friends are all cooks, whether it be a specialization in making delicious fajitas (maybe that good because, like his wife once said, they represent a third of his culinary bag of tricks?), Middle Eastern/Eurasian delicacies, or innovative French-North American fusion dishes. With my family, I’m usually treated to traditional Quebecker fare. But I generally do not entertain myself. I mean, I barely really ever cook for myself, so I certainly would not go and commit to cooking for other people.

The idea of cooking is so anathema to me that, one of those friends kept pushing me to take up cooking as what he described as ‘a very rewarding hobby’, the only thing I could see were the dishes piling up in my sink. (And yes, they’re piled up high in my kitchen sink as I’m writing this - I’ll spare you the imagery!) I did commit to better food for myself when I signed up to Goodfood, a meal plan for adults (services like that exist in many places: you sign up, choose meals for a week, and you receive a box with the ingredients and a recipe to make it all come together). Even then, I was at best reluctant to adopt this way of eating.

At the same time, because I’m generally reluctant to cook, my efforts to make my meals look good become compromised. And so would my willingness to really indulge in food photography a.k.a. #foodporn.

My take on shrimp bugatini, made in early February 2020. Photographed handheld with my Sony a7 III.

When cooking the dish above, I had 80% of my attention to watching television and 20% on actually making sure that my food would end up being edible, let alone look good enough to make a palatable photo. Needless to say, I was not particularly rigorous at following the recipe. I can tell you, though, that boy didn’t end up getting girl; instead, he uses his makeshift time machine to stalk her through time - as it was a French production, it is sweetly ambiguous whether it is a romantic or truly creepy resolution to the story (I’m also ambivalent whether this ambiguity is deliberate or not).

The food did end up being delicious.

The current situation, where so many of us and confined to our homes because of a global pandemic, has strongly diminished both of these inhibitions. I had also happened to have recently acquired a speedlite and an umbrella softbox, mostly for portraits of course, but which can also be put to good use to photograph what I put on the dinner table.

Teriyaki Haddock, with the baby bok choy which is such an appreciated #makegoodfood staple.

I am afraid that I have been terrible at properly preserving portions, or more specifically divvying them up efficiently between two identical meals, especially nowadays. For that reason, my meal planning strategy involves ordering add-on meat and garnish, and splitting up the veggies/rice I get in my pre-arranged recipe envelopes to make more balanced meals.

So this is why you would see a lot of plates with two big pieces of meat. It does make it a lot less likely that I would lose and therefore waste food.

Note: I only eat like that about every other day. I still eat my fair share of pasta ;-)

My Easter Supper: French-style Bangers & Mash

Cooking like that, I feel like I am best able to, instead of learning recipes that I still have to follow, I am better able to focus on actually learning how I can cook something, and why/how it tastes different if I do it one way or the other. Then I can be more creative about what I eat without having to be preoccupied with getting Y quantity of X ingredient, which for me just misses the point of cooking. You could say I’ve been impressed by the opening lines of Alton Brown’s I’m only here for the food - not so much that I went a lot past it, at least not yet: I’m making my culinary journey at a very slow pace ;).

In any case, I hope that you’ve appreciated this post. For me, this is my way of dining my friends and family, and of letting them know how much I miss them, and how much I look forward to seeing them again. (Please, oh please, don’t get your hopes up too much for an in-person experience! …of the food I mean, of course :P)

Soonish, I’m planning to make another post for a sweet & savoury photexploration of recent breakfast choices. :-) See ya!