As is the fate that befalls all teachers, I am sick. Just as the sun has started to shine, as the weekend had begun to shuffle itself over to me - I find myself sat in bed cradling tea with a new season of chef’s table. In light of my last newsletter I feel that I somewhat had it coming. Now a smug version of past me is stood outside the window waiting, ‘Go on, do exactly what you told the internet you would do in this situation, grab your spoon and get cooking’. It is worth mentioning that just as I finished that there sentence, the weekly fire alarm test began. Not something I’m usually at home to enjoy which has now given my congestive headache a little extra kick. Ouch.
‘Feed a cold, starve a fever’, wrong. This saying comes from a 1574 dictionary by John Withals, who notes that ‘fasting is a great remedy of fever’. They also used to use urine for antiseptic and hot irons for haemorrhoids. No thank you. Nurture your body, feed yourself a hot bowl of salty love. I confess, I didn’t eat until nine thirty last night. I procrastinated dinner by sinking two bags of Tesco own brand salted popcorn (I’m somewhat of a salted popcorn connoisseur and this by far is the best brand) which probably turns the pit of my stomach into a maraca for the rest of my internal organs to shimmy to. I got in there eventually, and turned defrosted pancetta and the remains of my Italian summer holiday cheese into a carbonara. Slurping the meal in bed whilst nursing my candlestick nostrils I sat and thought, 'there you go, thats all you needed’.
I wasn’t intending to take a day off but ever since Covid my thought process in terms of being sick in public spaces has meant I try to spare the casualties where I can. I’d rather not be seen with a box of Kleenex in a room full of teachers who need to be back in school on Monday. So here we are, you and I in bed together overheating in our wooly socks. What I think is simultaneously beautiful and rotten about being sick is the way it interacts with love. I’ve got time to ponder seeing as lying in bed is what’s been prescribed by WebMd. For some of us sickness can augment the feeling of loneliness. I’m not just talking about keeping your distance for fear of being contagious, we’re no strangers now to quarantining. If no one calls or no one answers, well that’s just rubbish. I’m lucky today to have heard from fit and healthy humans who in a few weeks no doubt will be exactly where I am. Then it will be my turn, they will take my care.
A fox stole my bird feeder this week, so the birds aren’t visiting as often as they otherwise would, right now I’d like a feathered friend or two to pass the time with. I don’t blame them, all they know is that the tall woman who jumps out the window hasn’t been coming lately. She’s forgotten us. Food, is an expression of love. Sometimes suet balls and peanuts or chicken soup and a dal is all we can offer. Having worked with and auntie’d young children for ten years now I am constantly being taught what our bodies need when they are vulnerable. A two year old who just needs to watch Paddington with pureed potatoes, a five year old who needs to sleep it off at midday and a seven year old who needs a cuddle and a washing up bowl by her side. To be sick is to mother yourself. I find it so interesting when I look up the verb ‘to mother’ on google and the result I receive is this - ‘to bring up (a child) with care and affection’. I do the same with the verb ‘to father’: ‘(of a man) cause a pregnancy resulting in the birth of (a child)’. Hm.
I’m not sure that my newsletters are always consistent and cohesive, less so when I’m negotiating thoughts through a headache. I think it’s a symptom of writing about food which is never as linear a process as a recipe would have us think. I will begin to tell you all I know about soup, and suddenly the thought of being a mother, the idea of sickness in a chronic or terminal sense and the todo list I cannot seem to find the bottom of all begin to crop up. The Blue Book, mine and my mother’s, isn’t just about food but food is what binds it. It is a history of feeding, which resulted in four children, who grew to be different sizes to be different and the same all at once. One eats beans from a can in Denmark and another soaks beans for 8 hours until they are soft in Oxford. They both survive, they are both happy. Admittedly, one is feeling a little sorry for herself today. All this to say, give your body what it needs - you know what that is. It’s what you might of eaten as a child, a Deliveroo order you keep for emergencies or birds eye chicken nuggets. I’m going to sleep now and later I will cook. Good morning.
