GRACE’S BUDGET PASTA
My ultimate autumn comfort food is my pressure-cooker pasta. Take a can of bog-standard tomatoes (the 24p ones), a full jar of olives from the minimart on the corner, a load of butter, any old herbs – the really dry ones, basically pot pourri – and a bit of salt and pepper. Pressure cook for 10 minutes, then hurl in dry penne and any cheese (Primula would do) and finish it off. Basically, Italian food that would make an Italian cry but makes me very happy. And to go with it, the punchy non-alcoholic aperitif Botivo – rather like a strong vermouth.
Doing the podcast completely changed my attitude to casual foods. We put so much emphasis on the perfect posh dinner we once had, or the dinner party dish we cooked with 15 ingredients from a farmer’s market. But these aren’t the things that tell us who we are. You get straight to the heart of a person by getting them to reveal that thing they’d make for themselves, quietly at the end of the night. Baked beans sprinkled with Wotsits, three Creme Eggs… Certainly nothing they’d photograph and post on social media.