Now there’s an autumnal nip in the air, I realise I was a dilettante in the kitchen over summer. We still ate well, but with light nights and so many inviting reasons to be outdoors – a splash in the sea, expeditions with old friends, holidays, trips to see family – my cooking went down a gear.
I wasn’t exactly slacking, but I certainly didn’t peruse my extensive cookbook library, follow a formal recipe or ring the changes. Instead, I fell back on trusty, easy dishes like classic salade niçoise or melted local goat’s cheese on toast with sharp-sweet cherry tomatoes and Greek basil from the garden. Our plates showcased peak summer ingredients. My habit of making a weekend food shopping list went into abeyance. Weekends lost significance, too. My excuse – not that I need one – is that a series of public holidays confused me about the days of the week. Cue more than usual disorganised dashes to the shops for missing ingredients. We ate a few too many takeaways, which in retrospect, were disappointing and expensive.