There Is Nothing Convenient About Bad Food.

I have a huge sentimental attachment to the handful of cookbooks my mother bought me over the years. One of my favourites is The French Kitchen by Joanne Harris, I love that she associates so many of her happy childhood memories around cooking with her great-grandmother and other female relatives and that these memories can be evoked by the tastes and smells of cooking.

For me, cooking is a gesture of love and like Joanne I have many wonderful memories associated with food. Summers blackberrying at Rock Farm and the resulting summer puddings and blackberry jam, going to the allotment with my father and coming home with the first crop of runner beans, my nonna's famous apple pies, mum's steamy kitchen on a Sunday as she prepared a delicious roast......our kitchen wasn't just a place to cook and eat, it was somewhere we gathered to talk, to learn and most importantly, to be together without distractions.

Joanne writes: 'Much of our past and culture is secretly defined by food. Our earliest sensations are to do with tastes and smells; as infants we experience food as comfort and an expression of love.'

Sadly these have become hollow words, far from being an expression of love, nurture and comfort, food has become about convenience. Forget creating memories or seeing cooking as a social activity, parent's are feeding their children on chicken nuggets and pizza, and many children are lucky if they get to sit at a table with their parents, often their only dining companion is the TV.

The French believe teaching children to eat is as important as teaching them to read, from the age of three they spend lunchtimes at school eating at the table. In the UK it has become fashionable (and convenient) to allow children to graze, rather than being involved in preparing, cooking and sharing food, children are given finger food which they eat whilst walking around, watching TV or playing on their computers.

Joanne writes: 'Cooking is as close to magic as modern society allows, a sensual, whole-body experience which allows us to take a set of basic ingredients and transform them into something wonderful. It takes less time to make a fabulous sandwich, salad or pasta dish than it does to defrost an overpriced, processed tray of mush, there is nothing convenient about bad food!'

This next recipe is Joanne's daughter, Anouchka's chilli garlic bread. Anouchka loved making this when she was little (the cookbook was published in 2002) as it was easy enough for her to make without too much help and at the same time allowed her to create plenty of enjoyable mess. I love this because the bread is soft and doughy on the inside with a nice crust and the butter is rich and creamy, comparatively, shop bought garlic bread is always hard and crunchy, synthetic tasting and greasy.

Chilli garlic bread

Recipe
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
4 cloves of garlic, crushed, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt
175g soft butter
1 baguette

Heat the oven to 180c/gas 4
Put the chilli flakes garlic, and salt in a pestle and mortar, pound until it forms a paste ( if you aren't doing this with children you can pulse these in a blender)
Add the butter to the paste and mix well

Almost slice the bread to the bottom every 3cm, divide the butter mix among each incision, spreading it over the inner surfaces
Place on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes
Eat while warm

'You never forget a beautiful thing you have made' (chef Bugnard) said, 'even after you eat it, it stays with you - always.'

Love Donna xxxxxxxx