I am a cook who writes
Nigel Slater is my favourite cook – without question, steeped in the same tradition as I am – drawn from Elizabeth David, the doyenne of cookery writers and mother of the Mediterranean diet in England. His recipes and his writing glow on the page, aching to be translated into reality and tonight’s supper or tomorrow’s shopping or planting in the garden. He makes cooking the world’s biggest adventure, rich in experience and texture and feeling, a feast for the soul.
I have found, though I adore cooking, that I am a designer who writes – whether it is flowers for the table or church, new prints for the wall, a new cushion for the sofa, the compulsory furniture moving (CFM) to get the room or trade fair stand or other space “just so”.
One of the greatest excitements of being a designer of everything from faux flowers to flower arranging to table setting to tableware and even the humble tea cloth and handy oven mitt, is that when the first samples arrive it is like Christmas. The tingling of excitement as you anticipate seeing the results of an idea which goes off like a white flash in the back of the brain. When the hairs rise on the back of the neck when you see a potential product or handle a successful new sample, when you know you are on to a winner. Better than a lottery win, because it is not down to purely chance.
It takes years of honing the eye and the vision, just as honing the taste buds and the presentation skills for the chef. Years of practice laying a table or envisioning the trail of a creation from mere whispers in the brain to seeing others’ joy in the finished article.
Each piece of any collection becomes like a child of the mind willed into reality and disciplined into the best representation of itself
And you know what? It’s fun. It’s the best fun you can have. When I am dabbling to fashion a new line, it is as if I am a child again, at the kitchen table with the wind howling outside, the rain lashing and the warmth inside.
It’s harder when writing a book, a blog is easy, but a book is an exciting journey fraught with complications and tedium, especially editing, but the finished manuscript is such joy, if there is anything really finished. One idea tends to lead to another. Writing is a world of feast or famine, like food, when the larder is empty, it is dispiriting, but when it is full, the ideas brim over and compete for completion. They drive the process until they are expressed and then again there is a period of drought until the next storm of “what if I could?” write, cook, design, sell this? What if? When positive and focused this is the most empowering feeling in the world, providing purpose and joy and an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and appreciation. Thank you, thank you.
It is the same when I cook, I start with imagination, and chop onions and garlic, choose herbs or spices, oil or butter, think, envision and taste. Smell, and touch, and sight all engaged in preparing something special. Thank you for the food and the water and the words.
I have decided that I am a writer who designs, as Nigel is a cook who writes. And I can’t wait to read his new book, “A Cook’s Book”.
I am a writer who designs
