I’m not a lazy cook, really, but I am obsessed with being productive and efficient, which makes me pretty frugal with both my ingredients and my time. I don’t soak my beans and I enjoy doing in two steps what’s usually done in five. I save the scraps of my vegetables to make soup to avoid going shopping and one of my favourite snacks on planet Earth is the softened, chicken fat–soaked celery leftover in the pot from making broth, because why waste perfectly good celery? Both as a cook and an eater, I’m turned off by needless complications, and as particular and fussy as I can be, my food remains quite the opposite.
Since my last book, I met, fell in love with, got married to and had a baby with a wonderful man. In his vows, he told me that his favourite nights at home were when we didn’t have time to go grocery shopping and I made something out of what we had in the pantry, because it was in those thrown-together moments that he got to see how my imagination worked. I cried very hard, of course – never had I considered that someone might interpret my affinity for practicality as creativity. Gorgeous meals come together easily with perfect produce and well-marbled meats, but nothing gives me more pleasure than rooting around the cans and tins of a dimly-lit kitchen and emerging with the best tomato soup of my life.
I feel both proud of and nervous to admit that this book could potentially be described as . . . adult. Mature, even. There’s a quiet confidence in recipes that have so few ingredients, take so little time and yet promise so much. What the recipes here lack in bells and whistles, they make up for in soul and deliciousness. Some are old classics I’ve reinterpreted (I add garlic to my carbonara and there’s no cheese in my caesar dressing), some are recipes that are classic to me (Caramelised Shallot Pasta is undeniably more famous than I am), some aren’t classic at all (yet) and all are easy to make with the help of a well-stocked pantry. Throughout, the complexity of the recipes stays low and the ingredients lists are minimal, all the while encouraging you to go off script, to adapt and make them your own. An extended love letter to simplicity, this book is about finding joy and satisfaction in the tiny miracles of cooking – all of the deliciousness that comes from making something from nothing.
