some air-freshener before you go,’ I plead. He
obliges, and then I hear the door slam shut behind him.
Student
cookery, if I’m honest, is not a complicated business. Sure, you
get the occasional maverick who will attempt to do a full-on,
trimmings ’n’ all Christmas dinner at some point in December, but
that tends to involve less cooking than it does blaring fire
alarms, smoke billowing from ovens and would-be Gordon Ramseys
lying in the foetal position on the kitchen floor. Everyday student
cooking, on the other hand, comes in three basic categories: the
ready-meals bought at the start of a semester, when the maintenance
loan has just arrived and you’re rich enough to justify being lazy,
which require no more in the way of preparation than opening a
microwave door and dumping the results on a plate, or a cut-up
pizza box if all your unwashed crockery is growing mould colonies;
the cheap cuts of meat you haggle for at the market in the middle
weeks, stuck in a frying pan, heated up past the point of
salmonella if you’re feeling patient enough and mixed up with rice
or pasta, along with a jar of sauce if you’ve been sensible with
your money or tinned tomatoes is you haven’t; then, in those
penniless final weeks, the couple slices of toast with baked beans
shovelled over them – enough to fight off scurvy until you make it
home for the holidays, but still keeping every possible penny free
for going out drinking. Of course, there’s always the few who take
it to the extremes: I do – for example - know of a guy who lived
entirely off of plain pasta while he was in his first year. Well,
for a few months of his first year, at least. He had to spend a
week in hospital after that, on a drip and a steady intake of
industrial-grade laxatives. Though I’m currently languishing
between stages two and three of the above-described template,
tonight I’ve thought ‘fuck it’ and gone with the
bung-it-in-the-oven option - a classy, Tesco Finest version of the
bung-it-in-the-oven option, at that – which has left me with plenty
of time to nail the first of the two bottles of cheap wine I bought
this afternoon.
I think I
drank the first few glasses from a lack of anything else to do,
seeing as the actual cooking is taking care of itself and Liz is
happily watching University Challenge in the living room,
shouting out ‘Benzene! Benzene!’ to any question that sounds
vaguely science-related, then swearing in French when she gets it
wrong. The more I drink, however, the more convinced I become that
I can get Liz to come along to the gig - or at least get permission
to go by myself - and I’ve started looking at this blurred vision
and overwhelming desire to sing along to the radio as a good
baseline for when I go out to meet Charlie, Fred and Johnny
later.
The cooker
beeps. That means it’s time to get the Bombay potatoes in. I grab
the packet off the counter, but I can’t get any purchase on the
little cellophane tabs at each end. After however long of pinching
at thin air near the edge of the packet, I think ‘fuck it’ again,
and tear the last inch right off the end of the box. Unfortunately,
the packet, not realising that I only wanted the last inch to come
off, responds by splitting right down the middle.
‘Fuck’s sake,’
I mutter, as the sticky mush splatters against the lino. I grab my
latest glass of wine to give me strength and kick the wasted food
towards the back door. Oh well; at least it was only a side
dish.
When I carry
the curries into the living room Liz is bent over the arm of the
sofa with her eyes closed, trapped halfway between breathing and
snoring. I plonk her plate down on the coffee table in front of
her, comb her hair out of her eyes, and say:
‘Dinner’s
served, sleepyhead.’
‘ Meurrghhh …’ Liz replies.
‘I’ll take
that as “compliments to the chef”,’ I return, switching her full
glass for my half-empty one. She does that Knahp! Knahp! thing that Tom and Jerry
obliges, and then I hear the door slam shut behind him.
Student
cookery, if I’m honest, is not a complicated business. Sure, you
get the occasional maverick who will attempt to do a full-on,
trimmings ’n’ all Christmas dinner at some point in December, but
that tends to involve less cooking than it does blaring fire
alarms, smoke billowing from ovens and would-be Gordon Ramseys
lying in the foetal position on the kitchen floor. Everyday student
cooking, on the other hand, comes in three basic categories: the
ready-meals bought at the start of a semester, when the maintenance
loan has just arrived and you’re rich enough to justify being lazy,
which require no more in the way of preparation than opening a
microwave door and dumping the results on a plate, or a cut-up
pizza box if all your unwashed crockery is growing mould colonies;
the cheap cuts of meat you haggle for at the market in the middle
weeks, stuck in a frying pan, heated up past the point of
salmonella if you’re feeling patient enough and mixed up with rice
or pasta, along with a jar of sauce if you’ve been sensible with
your money or tinned tomatoes is you haven’t; then, in those
penniless final weeks, the couple slices of toast with baked beans
shovelled over them – enough to fight off scurvy until you make it
home for the holidays, but still keeping every possible penny free
for going out drinking. Of course, there’s always the few who take
it to the extremes: I do – for example - know of a guy who lived
entirely off of plain pasta while he was in his first year. Well,
for a few months of his first year, at least. He had to spend a
week in hospital after that, on a drip and a steady intake of
industrial-grade laxatives. Though I’m currently languishing
between stages two and three of the above-described template,
tonight I’ve thought ‘fuck it’ and gone with the
bung-it-in-the-oven option - a classy, Tesco Finest version of the
bung-it-in-the-oven option, at that – which has left me with plenty
of time to nail the first of the two bottles of cheap wine I bought
this afternoon.
I think I
drank the first few glasses from a lack of anything else to do,
seeing as the actual cooking is taking care of itself and Liz is
happily watching University Challenge in the living room,
shouting out ‘Benzene! Benzene!’ to any question that sounds
vaguely science-related, then swearing in French when she gets it
wrong. The more I drink, however, the more convinced I become that
I can get Liz to come along to the gig - or at least get permission
to go by myself - and I’ve started looking at this blurred vision
and overwhelming desire to sing along to the radio as a good
baseline for when I go out to meet Charlie, Fred and Johnny
later.
The cooker
beeps. That means it’s time to get the Bombay potatoes in. I grab
the packet off the counter, but I can’t get any purchase on the
little cellophane tabs at each end. After however long of pinching
at thin air near the edge of the packet, I think ‘fuck it’ again,
and tear the last inch right off the end of the box. Unfortunately,
the packet, not realising that I only wanted the last inch to come
off, responds by splitting right down the middle.
‘Fuck’s sake,’
I mutter, as the sticky mush splatters against the lino. I grab my
latest glass of wine to give me strength and kick the wasted food
towards the back door. Oh well; at least it was only a side
dish.
When I carry
the curries into the living room Liz is bent over the arm of the
sofa with her eyes closed, trapped halfway between breathing and
snoring. I plonk her plate down on the coffee table in front of
her, comb her hair out of her eyes, and say:
‘Dinner’s
served, sleepyhead.’
‘ Meurrghhh …’ Liz replies.
‘I’ll take
that as “compliments to the chef”,’ I return, switching her full
glass for my half-empty one. She does that Knahp! Knahp! thing that Tom and Jerry
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