Can I live in Stepford?

Apart from observing that the 2004 film with Nicole Kidman is really quite dire and horribly cast, I don’t think it had quite the intended effect on either me or my husband. There was a scene somewhere in the middle of the rather flat footed satire where Matthew Broderick (so, basically Ferris in a suit) sits down in a wingbacked leather armchair, lights a cigar and has a glass of whisky. My husband immediately wandered over to our whisky decanter, which we have maybe rashly positioned in the living room, as if his sudden desire for whisky was a complete coincidence, and poured some into exactly the same sort of glass tumbler shown in the “men’s club”.

All I could think of whilst watching was how much I wanted those nipped waist 50s style floral dresses, and how lovely all the hats looked. I mean, ok, it turns out they were androids with rewired human brains, so… what’s not to like. A perfect, tuned body that never ages – great.

Obviously we’d both quite like to have our own thoughts in our brains, but the traditionalist premise is pretty appealing. I suddenly found myself day dreaming about how many babies I could have if our house was that big, and how many cakes I could make. The man seems to have some unspecified rich guy job that doesn’t require him to work hard at all.

I would look up recipes and meal plan and wander around shopping for the nicest tomatoes. Maybe I’d have some sort of little job while the kids were at school, but it’d be something like working in reception for a famous violin maker, and eavesdropping on famous violinists coming in to try them out.  It wouldn’t be this endless grind of pressure. Maybe I’d restore gold leaf to some frescos, or work in a super chic jewellery shop with no customers.

My meal preparation would be done as it is now, several weeks in advance, but I would cook it all fresh each day, unlike my current batch cooking, packing into boxes and freezing approach. I make a lot of stews.

Recently my meal plans have drifted off into multiple days of beige food, and frozen vegetables because I’m tired of food being wasted. Then I try to make up for it by making double  batches of the healthier food, which means we have an unappealing selection of way too many leftovers. It’s an area where I need to improve my ideas a bit. It doesn’t really help that Ingrid has declared she does not like mashed potato, but she’s not rejecting potatoes, just the mashing. So it’s easy enough to leave a few out. Or just move to new potatoes for everything, probably healthier. The other day I made a fish pie with a pasta topping instead, which was surprisingly nice.

My favourite recipe is my variation on the Hairy Biker’s moussaka, whcih doesn’t take quite as long.

Moussaka variation – no aubergines!

750 lamb mince (10% fat)

Cinnamon stick plus 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

finely chopped onion

3 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1.5 teaspoons dried mintb

bay leaf

1 tbsp flour

200 ml red wine

400g chopped tomatoes

concentrated tomato puree

500g frozen chopped peppers

250g orzo pasta (dry weight)

50g butter

50g flour

500ml milk

100g grated parmesang

grated nutmeg

Method

Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Spread the frozen peppers out on a baking tray, add salt, pepper, olive oil and 3-4 garlic cloves and put in oven for about 20 minutes.

Put the lamb, onion, garlic, herbs and spices in a large pan and cook the lamb until no pink remains. Season well with salt and pepper. Add the flour and wine, and mix well. Add the tinned tomatoes, and tomato puree, then turn the heat down and stir occasionally for 20 – 30 minutes.

Cook the pasta, drain and add to a large oven proof dish.

Make the white sauce in your usual way, some people appear to add everything in at the same time, but i melt the butter, add the flour and cook on high for a minute, turn right down, then add the milk gradually and turn up the temperature when all combined. Add grated nutmeg and pepper to the sauce, turn the heat off and add half the parmesan.

Take the peppers out of the oven, combine with the pasta and the meat sauce, then pour the white sauce over the top. Sprinkle remaining parmesan on top, adding more if you like, and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Cooking is my only connection to domestic life these days, and it  makes me sad. I can’t give it up, because I want to provide something for my children, but it does take up quite a lot of time batch cooking at weekends. Right now, I’m sitting in an airport lounge in America, having not seen my family for a week, and wondering what it’s all for.