I’m usually enthusiastic about cooking, eating, vegetables, looking after myself, often all that and usually most of them. For the last week or so, I haven’t been. It hasn’t turned me to junk food because I’m not an idiot, nor to sugar nor the ultra processed evils, most of which combine, but I’ve thrown together random meals, using food that I’ve bought because not wanting veggies hasn’t stopped me buying or picking them, like being too hungry means that your brain doesn’t recognise fullness until 20 minutes after you start eating. And sometimes I’ve eaten the meal because I know I’ll regret it later if I don’t. Z doesn’t like to be unfed for too long. To me, intermittent fasting means don’t snack in the evening, not skip meals.
Tonight, it seems to be on its way out, this really annoying disinclination to eat properly at a time when it would do me most good. Just as, when low or depressed, a small setback or unkind word can plunge into the depths, a cheering ingredient can have the opposite effect.
I went to one of the vegetable stalls on Norwich market yesterday. There are only two now, they used to be the majority of stalls. But anyway, I was tempted by the array of “wild” mushrooms. It’s a misleading name, they’re all cultivated now, but there isn’t really another description, any more than there is for “wild boar.” I couldn’t be bothered to cook them yesterday but I had to cook something to go with the bass fillet, so I started chopping. I started with olive oil (the fad for EVOO as an acronym for the only olive oil I ever use really irritates me, but I mask it everywhere but here) shallots and garlic, added the mushrooms, added vermouth because I didn’t want to open a bottle of white wine … and I started to feel my mood lift. I cooked the fish and some runner beans, added some cream, because I had it, to the mushrooms and now I’m waiting for a feeling of wellbeing to kick in.
Waiting. Bound to happen. I enjoyed cooking and eating a meal. Waiting…
Some time later … it seems the 20 minute rule applies to mood too. Huzzah.
That sounds delicious!
It’s pretty well what I often use as a topping for canapés – I used the last of your lactose free cream, so you could have eaten it too!
Hmm, vermouth with mushrooms. I shall have to try that. I always do white wine or maybe a squeeze of lime.
Vermouth – now there is a blast from the past. Perhaps worth another try, if only for the mushroom angle.
I also use vermouth rather than wine in risotto. I never actually drink it, but always have a bottle in the rack.