Weekend dinner

One thing I really miss is the Sunday roast beef with lashings of gravy and Yorkshire puddings, Yum Yum! I know I have blogged about this subject before, but I haven’t been home to Donegal in a while, so I haven’t had my mums Sunday roast. I can’t go home for a few weeks as my parents are away in the UK visiting relations, so I will just have to write about the Sunday dinner. Yes I know I can go down to the butcher and buy a roast for tomorrow, or even go out to one of them gastro pubs for Sunday lunch. But to be honest, it’s just not the same as mums cooking.

 I can’t believe I’m talking about my mums cooking as she is legendary for NOT BEING A VERY GOOD COOK. I know what you are all thinking, but I have to be honest and say that it is true. In case you are reading this mum, I’m talking about another Mum that one of my friends heard about (I think I will get away with it) ANYWAY as I was saying, My mum, or I mean, a mum that one of my friends heard of, isn’t a very good cook. I know this sounds unfair and in a way it is, as the food she cooks is quite good with her Sunday dinner and maybe the odd homemade apple pie. Her food, although not bad, seems to taste the same. One example of this is when she was staying with me for a week. I was still working and I came home and there was a dinner ready for me. Ok this is a good thing, but I didn’t expect her to make dinner at all. I was going straight home to make a nice dinner for the both of us, but she beat me to it. Know I don’t remember what she made, but I do remember how amazed I was (although I did not say to her) that the food somehow had a uniform taste that I, to this day, cannot figure out how she managed. When I make a dinner, normally every component has its own taste. For example, peas will taste of peas and potatoes will taste of potatoes. It’s a simple as that. Another time was when we caught some fresh marcel in Lough Swilly, and mum cooked them for dinner. I did not say, but they had little or no taste to them, which I could not believe. Normally fresh marcel is one of the tastiest fish you can eat, but not in my mum’s kitchen.

 Now it’s not just the uniform taste, or even the lack of taste that is so different in my mums cooking, it’s also the strange combinations that she will serve. My sister in-law has said this before as well, and she has talked about the food combinations such as frozen pizza served with lasagne and baked beans for tea and salad with tinned salmon served with oven chips and waffles. Also her home made custard that is made from sugar, corn flour and milk and nothing else. I mean, even if there was something in the custard that would make it look the traditional yellow it would be some improvement. My brother Arren (sounds like Arren but starts with a D) loves my mums cooking even though his wife is a great cook. I kind of think his pallet would be more educated seeing as he hasn’t lived back home in Donegal for 15 years or so. Don’t know how my sister in-law puts up with the competition as she herself is a brilliant cook.

Another odd thing is (my uncle Joe told me about this one) when mum and dad go to a restaurant, they always seem to pick the same thing each and every time. If they get a steak for example, they will both ask for it to be well done with onions. My aunty Angela went on holiday with them for two weeks last year, and she was saying, she never came across two people that will eat the same dishes each and every time and it never seems to be a conscious decision either, as they may be sitting at different ends of the table. So much for freedom of choice.

Anyway, I’m going off now to make a dinner. It won’t be roast beef with all the trimmings, but if I can make everything with a uniform taste, I can just shut my eyes and pretend that I am eating my mums Sunday roast dinner.