Simple fresh ingredients. The three words that sum up Italian cooking. A wise woman once told me that, faced with a dish that didn’t taste quite right, a French chef would think about what ingredient they could add while an Italian chef would think about what ingredient they could take away, stripping the dish down its absolute essence. This is something that we make along Italian principles. It depends on finding flavoursome, robust spinach where you can almost taste the iron, not the watery, bland supermarket stuff. And, of course, the tomatoes have to be sweet and pert.
Wash the spinach well and place in a colander to drip dry. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan on the lowest heat you can get. Cut the garlic into thin slices and fry in the oil—the test is to cook it as slowly as possible (because there is an element of challenge to this dish blokes seem to like cooking it—that and it’s simple as pie).
Chop the tomatoes into decent chunks, cutting out the stringy stalks along the way.
Boil some salty water and cook the tagliatelle with a bit of oil. At the same time put the spinach in on top of the garlic and oil but turn off the heat.
When the pasta is cooked add this on top of the spinach, put the heat back on low, and stir everything together so the spinach is evenly spread. Season with lots of salt and pepper, add the tomatoes and stir once more. The tomatoes should not be cooked too much, just heated through. If it’s looking a bit dry add more oil and serve immediately with some parmesan.
4 Los Angeles…London…Loro Piceno
We only just made it back to London before our baby, Rosie, arrived, bang on time, and suddenly we were three. As we left the hospital, our tiny little naked mole rat bundled up and looking teensy in the obligatory car seat, we expected a heavy hand on our shoulder at any moment. It just doesn’t seem possible, when you think of all the tiny petty things that the law doesn’t let you do, that the authorities really think it’s OK to hand over the care of a tiny vulnerable little human to terrified amateurs.
We happily lived in the bubble that is early parenthood for a few months, seeing lots of friends and family, being treated like royalty, and sauntering out with Rosie into the charmed London world around us. We did things like take her—at a few weeks of age—to an exhibition of magnified insects at the Natural History Museum, or, stashed under coats, to music recitals. And every Friday night—our sacrosanct ‘date night’—we’d walk round and round the block, swinging her in her car seat or singing banal songs until she fell asleep and we’d be able to go out for dinner together, banned from even mentioning the baby word.
Jason did his last stint of work for the Scrapheap Challenge juggernaut at the end of 2004 and then said goodbye to TV. We both underestimated the shock of his giving up work. The idea was that he would do part-time Rosie care (my maternity leave having come to an end) and part-time development and research for our life to be. In other words, a rather formless existence, with suddenly no colleagues, no structure, no clocking in and out and, crucially, no pay cheque at the end of the month. Lots of people say money isn’t important to them—us included. And what you mean when you say it is that, if you were forced to live on very little money, you feel sure that you could cope. And you’re probably right. But the main thing you lose when you give up a pay cheque isn’t the money. Instead, you are losing your independence (and I’d say, feminism intact, that for a man this is harder, because the social taboos are so much more potent) and your sense of being valued in the world; you’re losing your sense that you are contributing.
Rationally, you know most of this is nonsense—of course Jason was doing valuable work, both with Rosie and for our future. But such is the curse of unpaid work at home—it is unrecognized and unappreciated by society. But people still ask women who stay at home ‘But what do you actually do all day?’
In terms of the business we were going from a true standing start. And Jason was doing most of it single-handed as I was back at work three or four days a week, the other days looking after Rosie. Our ‘To do’ list for January read as follows:
TO DO LIST—JANUARY 2005
| TO DO FOR BUSINESS | WHEN | BY |
|---|---|---|
| Write Business Plan | ||
| Find out about EU grants | ||
| Find out about small business loans | ||
| Investigate starting business in UK v. Italy (consulate) | ||
| Investigate importation rules (licences, food standards) | ||
| Organize pruning lessons | ||
| Capital investment research | ||
| Set up e-mail/website | ||
| Name for company | ||
| UK importer contacts | ||
| US importer contacts | ||
| Shop contacts USA | ||
| Talk to Madeleine re design | ||
| Get hold of Italian instructional video tapes on olive trees | ||
| Set up UK company—UK or Italian? Research | ||
| TO DO FOR HOUSE | WHEN | BY |
|---|---|---|
| Work out timetable for building work | ||
| Transfer money/get best rate (check rate daily) | ||
| Kitchen plan—send designs |
