Reacquainting ‘past you’ and ‘future you’ in the kitchen

or, laying down the groundwork for a better future of cooking.

Taking a break from writing a book proposal on Tuesday 19th July 2022 in 40.2c heat, my eyes genuinely fogged up, I couldn’t see straight. I was in a rhythm, you see, meaning I was staring intently at my laptop screen, trying to ignore the sodden shirt that clung to my back, the heavy shorts stuck to my thighs, diligently committing thoughts to paper. I was sweating, I knew that; the whole country was sweating, but I wanted to carry on, get this one job finished. This meant that, five minutes after stopping for lunch, a change of shirt and a fresh pair of shorts secured, I was standing in front of the fridge desperately wondering what might illicit a cooling effect on my core temperature and it dawned on me that I couldn’t see a thing. My eyeballs were much like the door of a supermarket freezer section, opened hastily to grab a bag of peas, a box of rocket lollies, then slid shut again quickly, not quickly enough though to stop the whole door from steaming up so the next poor bugger has no chance of discerning what might be behind the frosted glass of freezer number two.

‘Past me’ had not set up ‘future me’ for blissful ease on the hottest day of the year.

‘Past me’ had royally stitched ‘future me’ up. This is despite ‘past me’ taking to Instagram on Monday 18th July 2022 and smugly chirruping on about cold soups as the catch-all remedy for the overheating cook. ‘Past me’ helped himself to seconds, and then thirds, of said ice cold tomato and egg soup, and thus left ‘future me’ with a desolate fridge and a long walk to the supermarket if anything other than neat parmesan or spoonfuls of crispy chilli oil was to be the remedy this lunchtime.

As a restaurant chef the distance between ‘past you’ and ‘future you’ is short, the relationship intense. Suppose ‘past you’ beasts their prep and leaves 25 portions of something in the walk-in fridge for tomorrow, ‘future you’ will be gleeful the following morning. Suppose ‘past you’ preps back up for each item on their section prior to stopping for staff meal. In that case, ‘future you’ will be perfectly set up going into service, meaning when a surprise 150 cover service hits you square between the eyes ‘future you’ is grateful to past you in a way that someone who has never worked a 150 cover service when the booking sheet forecast a casual 65 covers. The inverse of these scenarios doesn't bear thinking about. During my time as a chef ‘past me’ was certainly guilty of considering ‘future me’ a much more proficient cook than I was. This meant ‘past me’ would often send ‘future me’ into service with fish to fillet a la minute, or might have left things on the prep list to be ticked off in the quiet early period of service before the 19:30 tables started streaming in. ‘Past me’ was setting ‘future me’ up for a fall, each and every time.

I digress.

The heatwave of the past week reminded me that I needed to reconnect ‘past me’ and ‘future me’ in the home kitchen.

Fresh from being a restaurant chef, ‘past me’ would always prep extra sauce, cook extra rice, make stock on the off chance, roast off bits and pieces of veg just to be stored in Tupperware, toss odds and ends of things in the freezer for ‘future me’ to do something with a day, a week, a month from today.

Current me has become distant from ‘past me’ and ‘future me’ in the kitchen, and that is going to change.

Be it a heat wave, a cold snap, a hangover, a baby, an unannounced visitor, an unexpected hunger, a sleepless night or an unseasonably early morning, having a ‘past you’ who is looking out for ‘future you’ is a very good place to be.

Below is a list of helpful tips and tricks that ‘past me’ will start doing for ‘future me’ as of today:

1. If it is hot, make cold soup, and make enough of it to last a few days. No one wants to cook when it’s hot.

2. Make tonnato sauce (see recipe below) in bulk - spoon it over cold meat, cold fish, cold sliced vegetables, or pour it straight in your mouth

3. Cook double portions of rice whenever I cook rice - chilled and stored in a sealed container in the fridge means ‘future me’ has fried rice, kedgeree, instant rice, bibimbap, burritos, biryani, and more in my future. (below is the only method you need to cook rice, any rice, perfectly every time.)

4. Cooking a ham - buying sliced ham is expensive, I do like sliced ham though. I used to pop a little piece of smoked gammon in a panful of water with some celery, carrot, onion etc from the veg drawer. Twenty minutes on a boil, then into the oven glazed with honey and mustard, honey and miso, maple syrup and chilli sauce, etc and 20 minutes later we have a perfectly cooked ham to be sliced over the next week or so, as well as a ham stock to be used for soup, instant noodles, ramen, lentils, braises, etc. All for about the same price as a pack of ham.