Favourite foods

Butternut squash soup

Isn’t food brilliant? Can’t get enough of it. It’s a damn good job that eating, something you have to do so you don’t die, is also something that can be so pleasurable. Other than overcooked liver in school, the time I mistook taramasalata for strawberry ice cream, and the times when my mother deceitfully tried to sneak parsnips into my dinner when I was a child by disguising them as chips, eating has been a favourite hobby for most of my life.

Some favourite foods, and where I might get them:

• English sausages, buttery mashed potato and thick caramelised onion gravy with peas (home)
• Roast pork, apple sauce, roast and mashed potatoes, veg (home or the Funky Munky, Siem Reap)
• Chicken nuggets (Soria Moria, Siem Reap)
• Double bacon and guacamole burger, coleslaw, chips and onion rings (Wilde’s, York)
• Khmer fish amok or curry with big chunks of potato and carrot (Paper Tiger or Khmer Kitchen, Siem Reap)
• Rotisserie chicken in a crisp baguette with lashings of mayonnaise (Sainsbury’s then home)
• Vietnamese barbecued wild boar and venison eaten with whole lemon grass, salad, and lime pepper dip (small unnamed restaurant in Kon Tum, Vietnam)
• Roasted butternut squash soup with parmesan baked parsnip wedges topped with creme fraiche (home)
• Corn on the cob dripping with butter (home)
• Moules mariniere (home or Belgo)
• Proper fish and chips (Elmsett chip van, Petergate Fisheries in York)
• Risotto (home)
• Argentinian steak with everything (Las Tanjeras, Mendoza)
• Patatas bravas (anywhere they speak Spanish)
• Salt and pepper squid with garlic mayo (practically anywhere)
• Aloo baigan masala (practically anywhere)
• Ben and Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew ice cream (the shops then home)
• Apple crumble with custard (home)

OK, I have to stop. All I have is an eccles cake and instant coffee.