Democratic Oat Cookies

For some reason, when I think about what I want for my child in life, it always involves baking cookies. It’s possible that I’ve internalised the association of motherhood with cookie making, or else I just this have Pavlovian reaction to cookies whereby if cookies are present, something is going right in the world of your home. My sister was a day student at a boarding school (long story, which I’ll save for my memoir) where the girls were given fresh cookies every day at 10am. By contrast, I went to a Catholic school, so the closest we got to cookies was communion wafers and the cigarettes we smoked behind the music caravan. Not good.  Continue reading

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

I can’t remember my first encounter with this combination, but it was probably at an old-school ice cream parlour in my hometown. When I was little, the crispy, oily sandwich dunked into the rich soup conveyed an almost unbearable feeling of coziness. The cheese was always ‘American’ – processed singles, radioactive orange, savouring of plastic.  The soup was without fail Campbell’s Cream of Tomato. I became obsessed with it, and that hasn’t really changed. Grilled cheese and tomato soup are what you eat on a cold rainy day when your heart is a little heavy and the thought of cooking ‘real food’ doesn’t appeal.  It isn’t really grown-up food – there’s a reason children love it. It does make a quick and satisfying dinner.  Continue reading