My Advice for Eating Better

I like food. I like eating. I like cooking. I like shopping for dinner. I like waking people up with scrambled eggs, or a fatly sliced watermelon and yoghurt. I like picking blackberries, spreading soft butter on hot toast, or stirring a big cauldron of soup. I like the juice to drip from a bright orange. I like white goat's cheese to crumble at my touch. I like my fruit swimming in thick cream.
But at least as much as I like preparing or scoffing food, I like talking about it, reading about it and thinking about it.

My friends and family know this only too well. Plenty of them routinely roll their eyes heavenwards as I begin to blab about the goodness of cholesterol, about why fat is great, but carbs and sugar are not. I think most of them stopped listening a while ago, bored of my bitching about ingredients lists, my rants against dirt-cheap supermarkets, or my fear or endless rows of corn.

Qué alegría la mía: pedido Ajoloko

Qué alegría la mía el domingo, cuando me llegó un pedido de huevos frescos, variados tanto en su tonalidad como en su tamaño; desde un caramelo claro, hasta una gran perla brillante, había desde el gordo y orgulloso, hasta el diminuto y elegante.

Aparte de los huevos, también recibí una botella de leche cruda de cabra y queso de cabra; éste último, en aquel punto de frescura que, sin poderse untar, le permite soltar un pequeño y ligero jugo; con una textura parecida a la de la mozarella italiana. Su olor es algo engañoso; fuerte e inconfundiblemente animal, mientras su sabor es suave y ligero con un toquecito de amargor al final.

Estos meses

Mis últimos tres meses han consistido en poco más que comer huevos, espárragos y ensaladas simples de platos blancos. La sencillez reina en mi cocina...

Cuando un trozo de pan no es sólo un trozo de pan.

¿Te acuerdas de la última vez que comiste pan que no llevaba nada más que harina, agua, levadura y sal? Pan, eso es, que no dura seis días gracias a los conservantes que lleva; pan, eso es, que no tiene una lista de ingredientes igual de larga que mi brazo, escondiendo en su complejidad químicos, azúcares, y leche en polvo.
¿Te acuerdas de la última vez que comiste un huevo, quitando la plumita gris, limpiando la cáscara antes de romperla y dejando caer su líquido nutritivo en la sartén?
¿Te acuerdas de la última vez que cogiste un tomate, maduro y orgulloso, con el aroma fresco de la tomatera, cortándolo para una ensalada o para echar encima de pan, sabiendo de donde vino, en que tierra se había criado, de que variedad de tomate procedía?

Ode to the Egg

Ode to the Egg

Today calls for an ode to the egg. That little oval being that patiently graces your breakfast table, waiting for you to slice off its little head, sprinkle salt over the gleaming white flesh, and gobble it up. Soldier Toast sits alongside, ready to dive headfirst (after having been covered with a thin layer of Marmite...) into the yellow swimming pool of goodness. This is, as they say in Spain, a 'Señor desayuno'.

I eat a silly amount of eggs. I buy a silly amount of eggs, a dozen a pop. They are up there in the line of my perfect foods. Doing life on an empty stomach is not something I'm any good at, so even though we stop working at 10am for breakfast in the pastelería, I need to have eaten a little something. So each morning, as I scuttle along the dark roads, wishing the sun would get up, I crack open a hard-boiled egg on the stone walls of Spanish government buildings, eternally wishing I had had the foresight to bring a little pot of salt and pepper.
At home on days off, either breakfast or lunch is probably going to be some kind of egg-concoction; yellowy flesh wobbling and jolly when it's been scrambled; or browned and dotted with vegetables and cheese in an omelette, or proudly waiting to have the yolk popped after a visit to the flying pan. Eggs, with their orange sun hidden in the middle, bring a smile to my day.

But the egg deserves an ode not just because I rather like it, nor just because it makes the basis of quick and easy meals. But rather, because it is damn good for us. Beneath that brittle shell lies a mountain of goodness for our bodies. The cholesterol they contain is the kind we need for memory function and cell repair. Their yolks hold omega 3 fatty-acids, beta-carotene, and vitamins A, D, E and K2, and they're an important source of good-quality protein that should play a starring role in our diets.