AP

AP is my Aunt Pat. She cooks once a week and I’m the only one that has been nominated to share this rather unnecessary exercise with. You see the point is, AP (and she knows that) can’t cook for nuts but yet she insists it’s her duty to feed her sister’s son at least once a week. AP doesn’t cook, instead she concocts, rather like the Korean school of cooking, she chucks everything in the pot and hope for the best. Her concoctions are always predictable and presented in two distinct ways; what she calls curry (I say spicy concoction) and the other, a hotpot (I call it dark concoction due to the copious amount of dark soy sauce used). The ingredients used for all her concoctions are always and unfailingly the same; boiled eggs, chicken, prawns, Indian karelā (bitter gourd), aubergine, cabbages, tomatoes and garlic. Whole cloves of garlic are literally thrown in without chopping, huge cabbages and aubergines are simply quartered and chucked in the pot. When confronted on this tactic and the lack of sophistication on the prepping side of things, she cited she’s a working lady and doesn’t have the time for all that jazz! Which inevitably also accounts for the lack of taste as well, for her concoctions are consistently under seasoned.

She’ll always call me up the next day to ask how I got on with her cooking, before I can even answer back, she will always acknowledge that it was pretty poor. Never mind, she’ll say beggars can’t be choosers and don’t forget to collect the grub next week. Gawd.