The Importance Of Rest: In And Out Of The Kitchen

Sometimes we feel guilty, we get sick, we delete Instagram; but we’ll always eat.

Food For Thought.

Resting a chicken is a fairly foundational instruction. The science tracks: heat makes meat contract, so putting a 1.5kg bird in a hot oven for over an hour will create a certain tension. Remove it from the oven, the skin bubbling with butter, clear juices running from the leg, cover it in foil – stop trying to make crispy skin happen; it’s not going to happen – and allow the meat to relax for at least 15 minutes. Everything softens. Carving becomes easier. The searing heat starts to dissipate. You’ll be able to pull the leg away without a knife. Perhaps you’ll rest the bird onto a rack, so the plate or dish below catches all the salt-soaked juices, primed for your stock tomorrow. During this time, you could prepare a salad: a plate full of crunchy leaves, raw fennel or maybe some thinly shredded white cabbage dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and parmesan. Set the table – digging out an old table cloth for a little ceremony, even if it’s just a solo meal. Candles for effect.

Leaving rice to rest is less obvious. Impatience overcomes me when I cook the white stuff, especially in the donabe pot, which takes exponentially longer especially when using an electric hob. Waiting for the steam to emerge from the dome feels like torture, let alone removing it from the heat and letting it rest on the clay tile. But it works. Ten minutes to reply to a few emails or catch up on that article; water the plants or vacuum the bathroom; snog your significant other or simply lie down on the bed in silence. Then return: lids come off, steam escapes and the rice paddle reaches into the sticky depths of the pot. The heat and the steam have allowed the rice that would ordinary stick like glue to the bottom to come away easily. Rest has made it perfectly fluffy, ready to receive the dark wonder of soy sauce and the silken drizzle of sesame oil.

Like chicken and rice, we could also do with a few moments to rest. This week I’ve been feeling Catholic levels of guilt (for what, I’m not sure, but its presence has been felt greatly in my body), a low-level hum of anxiety for zero reason whatsoever (anxiety’s MO) and an overall sense of sickness that isn’t covid, although I kind of wished it was so I could understand where it’s coming from. It’s resulted in a self-imposed lockdown that has then fed the guilt of not enjoying time out in the pre-spring sunshine. Earlier this week, I went against my better judgement and took myself for an afternoon jaunt to Hyde Park. It should have been glorious. The sun was shining and I had a few hours to myself. Instead I spent the entire time sweating, looking for a toilet and feeling like my body was going to explode. I walked into four Prets (for my favourite ham and cheese baguette) and walked straight out from pure exasperation. I walked 12,000 steps and I felt empty.

As someone whose default setting is ‘in bed’ (if you can’t find me there, I’m either sitting down in the shower or eating food at the kitchen counter), rest doesn’t feel like the answer to much. I rest all the time. I feel guilty for extra-curricular resting because there’s always something to read or do or eat or cook. I say yes to every dinner because I worry saying no will make me seem uncaring or selfish. But I forgot what it was like to rest your brain as well as your body. Some meditate (not me); I cook. A huge bowl of glossy linguine tossed in garlic, vermouth, chilli and parmesan on a Thursday lunchtime. A slow-cooked sausage ragu that bubbles in the oven, or a butter-roasted side of salmon that sits on top of mustardy lentils and perfectly diced mirepoix.

I also deleted Instagram, which has been unsurprisingly helpful. My brain has had time to soften. The juices are running clear again. I’m not mining the bottom trying to desperately peel thoughts away. They’re coming more easily. I’m writing more and scrolling less. I’m sure I’ll forget all about this the next time anxiety and stress become my fuel. If that happens, I’ll just have to roast a chicken and cook some rice to remind myself to rest.

Recipes-not-recipes™️

I made this soba noodle salad three times in one week. It’s so easy, can be changed up according to whatever veg you’ve got in the fridge, or to be honest you could have it with zero crunch and it would still be delicious.

You’ll need:

• 1 bunch of soba noodles per 1 hungry person (they usually come portioned up, which is super helpful!)

For the dressing:

• 1-2 tbsp runny tahini

• 1-2 tsp white wine/apple cider/rice wine vinegar

• Juice of 1/2 lime

• A drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce

• A squeeze of honey

To serve

• A hand full of de-stalked kale leaves

• Thinly sliced raw fennel (about 1/2 bulb)

• 1/2 chilli sliced into rounds

• Carrots/pumpkin/sweet potato

• Nutritional yeast

• Sesame seeds

• 1 spring onion (sliced)

Cook the noodles until they’re soft and slippery then run under cold water. Mix all the dressing ingredients together in a bowl then toss the noodles in with the raw veg. You could roast some pumpkin or carrots in olive oil until tender, then throw in the kale with a little more oil and a some soy sauce to make it crispy. Add to the noodle bowl and bring it all together, adding some sesame seeds and nutritional yeast for some added funk. Eat with the windows open, basking in the spring sun, rewatching Girls, resting your brilliant brains and bods.

Leftovers.

1. In case anyone’s interesting, I’m talking with Rhia Cook – the founder of food zine Potluck and Margaux Vialleron – a very wonderful French food writer, chaired by Claire Dalgleish, on a panel called At The Dinner Table on Wednesday evening at 7pm. It’s all online, so here’s a link to tickets if you fancy joining!

2. Just discovered the Alice Toklas Cook Book, and her famed recipe for hash brownies. Ordering a copy immediately. Here’s a great review in The Guardian about Toklas and her life partner, Gertrude Stein.

3. Enjoyed Marlowe Granados’s piece ‘In Defense Of Romance’ for Harper’s Bazaar – I’m similarly a fiend for love.

4. What does the end of beef mean for our sense of self? I guess I’d never really thought about this, but here the New York Times are, making me consider the correlation between a bleeding slab of meat and my own humanity.

5. Honestly I still don’t ‘get’ NFTs so the idea of minting a NFT pizza seems kind of wild, but Eater does a good job of explaining it here.

6. Thrilled to have found an academic piece on the significance and etymology of memes, thanks to the Yale Review.

7. Still waiting for a serialised tv adaptation of A Little Life, but as Hanya Yanagihara tells The Guardian, show business is too chicken-shit to take on her oeuvre.

8. Would love to write everything by hand, but my anxiety means that I self-edit far too often; but I definitely respect these two NYT journalists for handwriting 50,000 words and submitting them to a very patient editor.

9. I’m sadly away for this, but wanted to share this event: The Pakistan Day Supper Club, hosted by Numra Siddiqui on Wednesday 23rd March. The meal is three courses inspired by the very menu served at the Karachi Club to Jinnah on the independence of Pakistan. It sounds like it will be a table full of amazing conversation – definitely grab a ticket if you can get to Shepherds Bush! I’ll see you at the next one.

10. Quite into the look of this smoked trout and crème fraîche pasta; this butter chicken biriyani; and this Gjusta tuna sandwich that I’ll be eating as soon as I land in LA next month.