Pound for Pound

Ever wonder why your mum's or grandma's home made cooking always taste best? Even though you may have made the exact same dish with the exact same ingredients? Or why creating something from scratch always has that magical feel of satisfaction?

It's because you know that someone has painstakenly put it all together down to the finest detail. AND because it is almost always a labour of love. As you know - food (cooking and eating) isn't just about throwing and mixing a few ingredients together and hoping it to turn out - it is a passion and to some - an artform.

Sure, in the today of busy schedules and hectic family and social lives, we must sometimes settle for the instantaneous tools which surround us.

However, it's also wonderful for the soul to get back to basics every so often. Something as relatively simple as a Bolognaise sauce, for example, with a few ingredients tossed together or worst still one from a can or a jar, has nothing of the magic of one that has been traditionally made with the freshest of ingredients slowly simmered for hours to allow the flavours and aroma of each of the ingredients to infuse.

The minutes of blissful silence after serving out this back to basics meal (allowing for the clinking of cutlery on plates and the slurping of pasta of course) emitted by the guests is a true testament of it's magic.

In cooking back to basics I almost always instinctively look for one of my favourite tools in the kitchen. My heavy granite mortor and pestle. Virtually indestructible, it gives me power to fuse and control flavours and textures, it allows me to mix new flavours, it allows me to crush or grind or blend my ingredients to the coarseness or fineness I desire. It allows me to use my own energy (and sometimes even to vent out my frustrations). The motion and energy itself also becomes an ingredient in the food (which is why I suggest one always cooks with high spirits) essentially becoming a signature to the cooking.