Keep the promises you make to yourself

Having just completed the first week of my new job after a near eight-month period of (f)unemployment, I find myself conscious of all the projects I dedicated energy to during my time off. Many started, some completed, others still merely an idea. The set of four drinks coasters moulded from a bag of air-dry clay (one done, three to go). A novel (4,913 words written). Writing more. Cooking more. This blog (shameful second post in four months). 

With the latter three in mind, allow me to ramble on about a meal I cooked recently – or, more accurately, its form. Spending a week as a live-in dog-sitter while my best friend and her family jetted off to Tenerife, it was only right to make use of the massive kitchen I had been gifted for the duration. A far cry from the single-worktop affair in my Glasgow tenement flat. 

The setting naturally dropped me into a gaping rabbit hole of gastronomic wonder, culminating in a decision to cook a series of small plates. Small-plate dining is the latest foodie craze that I have been swept up by over the past year or so, having taken to cooking ridiculously elaborate plates at home, fattening up my nearest and dearest with growingly riskier flavour combinations. As a massive foodie with a never-ending list of recipes to try, it’s a failproof way of treating the creative itch and over-excitement that flows from trying to curate a two-course menu for a friend coming to dinner. 

On this occasion, the dear friend in question kindly played guinea pig to an experimental menu of: 

1. Fillet steak (my first ever purchase from a high-street butcher) with plum sauce, half a poached plum and brambles (blackberries to the non-Scot).
2. Hasselback baked potatoes drowned in garlic and sage oil (sage being my new micro-obsession). 
3. Arancini made from leftover prawn and chorizo risotto, stuffed with mozzarella, topped with garlic mayo and fresh chives. 
4. A pear and fig salad with peas, radish, brie, prosciutto and dill. 
5. Chilli, garlic and ginger oil with some warm olive bread (purchased from the Co-Op because one needs to have some limits).

While the Spaniards can (arguably) lay claim to the advent of the concept, the ever-edgy millennial-GenZ generation have taken to broadening the horizons of communal, small-dish dining. Somewhere between a buffet and a tasting menu, the beauty lies in the mixing of tastes, the freedom to fuse whatever cuisines pleaseth, and the wholesome interactions that flow from shared opinions of trying the same food. The jealousy of “oh I wish I’d ordered what he’s got” is eliminated. The embarrassment of asking the server if it’s okay to order three starters instead of a main? Gone. Replaced by a medley of Greek mezze, Chinese dim sum, Italian antipasti, Dutch bar snacks. 

Small plates, by nature, are quirkier, allowing for a level of artistic freedom that doesn’t always land with a single main and dessert vibe. The downfall is always cost, with the host typically having to succumb to a week of picky-bits dining thereafter to use up the array of leftover ingredients. That in itself can lead to a whole new range of food combinations if there is any creative fuel left in the tank. 

The easiest way to conceptualise small plates is to think of a solid plan for a single main course then treat each individual element as a separate entity, expanding them individually into fully fledged dishes of their own. Meat and two veg can quickly become meat with one veg and a sauce, another veg with a different sauce and different herbs, a third veg on top of a fourth in purée form. Throw in an exotic side salad, some bread with flavoured oil and Roberto is your tapas-loving uncle. There are, of course, more pots to stir, more timings to get right, but to the avid cook testing their culinary limits it’s all good fun. 

The poor guests, on the other hand. They will just have to wait while I add the tiniest sprig of parsley to the roundest circle of gravy with the greatest of intricacy. Another dear friend continues to joke about the obligatory pre-game crisps and tub of hummus she receives when she comes to dinner. Their sole purpose: to keep her mind and stomach occupied, knowing it takes a good half an hour for me to arrange the food on the plate and a further fifteen minutes to snap pics of it. 

The artistic flare that stems from curating more intricate presentations has allowed me to unlock this newer, tangential hobby: food photography. The beauty of this hobby is that I’m naturally drawn to take my phone from my pocket to snap a shot of any well-presented plate; it’s a hobby I can keep up without thinking about it. 

I’m quickly realising the key to a work-life balance is commitment. Commitment to hobbies, even if you continue to pick them up and drop them. Commitment to sustaining a creative outlet regardless of how tired you feel at the end of the day/week/month. Commitment to creative, spiritual and emotional rest. To nurturing the parts of your brain that thrive on self-expression. An overarching commitment to yourself. 

Recipes to follow. In the meantime, keep the promises you make to yourself.

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