Читать книгу Milly’s Real Food: 100+ easy and delicious recipes to comfort, restore and put a smile on your face - Nicola Millbank - Страница 12

Growing up, I always sat down to dinner with my family. No matter what anyone was doing we always made it back to the table. The kitchen was the hub of our home; we cooked, we laughed, we cried, we ate and drank and caught up on the day’s events together. Mealtimes equating togetherness is such an important mentality to have. Because of this I always associate food with family, talking and laughing – positivity. Snacking and eating on the go makes food become fuel. I’m very much a person who lives to eat and doesn’t eat to live; it’s such an important part of my life. Home cooking is, after all, what we all do. We survive on it every day. It is something we all have in common.

And this is why I want to celebrate the home cook again, dedicate my time to making real food and always aim for lagom (a Swedish term meaning “just the right amount”).

When I moved to London aged 18, I started to try lots of new food from all over the world – from Japan to France via Portugal. My cooking, however, wasn’t quite so cosmopolitan. Shepherd’s Pie, stir-fries and tray bakes were pretty much all I could cook and I quickly tired of the beige monotony. Something had to change. Cooking became my hobby; I experimented with flavours, learnt a few of the basics and began curating dishes, many of which have made it into this book.

I’m not a chef – I never have been and I’ve never tried to be. (And, for the record, I have appalling knife skills and I’m not afraid to admit it.) What I am, is passionate about home cooking, mixing flavours and experimenting with recipes that can be enjoyed with friends and family. Creating something that makes us happy and brings us all together.

So I wanted to create a book with recipes that were a fitting testament to that philosophy, using accessible and affordable ingredients – no weekly pay cheques spent at health food shops on coconut oil and spirulina. It’s all about fresh, easy to find and reasonably priced produce, the best of British grub cooked to perfection and embracing Scandinavian, European, Mediterranean, Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines.

I also wanted to create a book that the generations of female cooks and chefs before me would be proud of. It’s these ladies who have blazed a trail, and who have given me the courage to stand confidently by my values regarding what we eat, how we eat, and our relationship with food. This is my way of saying thank you to them. Above all, Milly’s Real Food is a little bit of everything; how I like to eat at home and what I cook my friends and family. As my hero of a grandfather, Walter, would say: “A little bit of what you fancy does you good.” Let’s get cooking some Real Food.

P.S. Share your recipe photos, favourite foodie haunts, meal ideas, and real food tips, tricks and hacks with me on Instagram @millycookbook or Twitter @MillyCookbook, with the hashtag #MillysRealFood