Fanny, D’ye Want Yer Jacket?
This year’s been full of food, travel, and me pretending I’m not the kind of person who plans entire holidays around food. guess what Im not …my wife does. Luckily my wife’s as obsessed as I am now. Though when we first met, she could barely fry an egg.I found that out one Saturday morning when she attempted to knock up a fry up the kitchen was fucking carnage, it like she was under attack. I just stood there empathetically asking her to help, however now she critiques my sauces, she actually hates them, judges my food daily, and thinks like a chef. I’ve created this, and I couldn’t love her more for it.
The year kicked off with an unexpected email from the operations director of Quique Dacosta, after he read a review I’d written on their London restaurant Arros QD. Next thing I know, we’re at a table eating Valencian rice cooked with the kind of precision that makes rocket engineers nether regions quiver. Service and food at a three-star level. The head chef, Eduardo, gave us a tour after dinner, showing off paella pans that tell you when the rice hits perfection. I stood there like a proud old man who’d just discovered Bluetooth for the first time. It reminded me what I love about great food, it’s obsessive, but somehow still full of culture.
A few weeks later, I found myself at Acme Fire Cult, one of my favourite places in London. I dragged a few meat-loving mates along, the type who think vegetables are a punishment. Watching their faces when they realised sixty percent of the menu was vegetarian was art at its finest. Andrew Clarke’s a Gandalfian wizard with vegetables, proving that leeks deserve the same love as brisket. I tell anyone visiting London the same thing, go there. Eat everything that moves or doesn’t.
My wife’s always been obsessed with Harry Potter. Like most people here in the UK, there’s this weird nostalgic bond to it, boarding school, sport, banter, first crushes, all that coming-of-age shit. Every year we rewatch the whole thing like it’s a ritual. Then one night she drops that the Hogwarts Express is actually a real train. While she’s glued to Ron and Harry crashing that blue Vauxhall, I’m on my phone in full mission mode, figuring out where, when, and how to book it. it’s in Scotland , the west coast , Fort William…. Christmas present sorted.
By June, we’re in Scotland, standing under the Three Sisters, both of us breathless and slightly moist. On the drive, a mate tells me about a seafood shack in Oban we have to visit. He was right. We did have to visit it. On the way, we pulled into The Green Welly Stop, Scotland’s answer to the services purgatory we have to endure in the UK. You can buy a map, a chainsaw, and a deep-fried breakfast all before 9am. The vegan option was a single banana, under a heat lamp. Next to it, hot haggis in a metal tray like someone’s nan’s leg. We arrived early in Oban, the sky that rare Scottish shade of blue, just as we’re walking up to the shack, some bloke turns to his wife and bellows, “Fanny, d’ye want yer jacket?” in the thickest Scottish accent. I nearly died from happiness. My wife smiled. I, of course, immediately decided this was the greatest sentence ever and spent the rest of the afternoon repeating it directly to my wife’s face at every given chance. Then came the food. Scallops, Langoustines, crab, lobster, mussels drowning in garlic and white wine, slabs of bread and butter thick as fucking bricks. Everyone stood shoulder to shoulder, cracking shells, slurping, focused. No ceremony. just disgust. If you closed your eyes I imagined It sounded like a filthy orgy. Regardless of the Pornographic sounds emanating from the patrons, it was The best seafood I’ve eaten since leaving New Zealand. Watching everyone devour it was both disgusting and slightly erotic. I felt dirty. I needed a shower.
Moments like that remind me why I love this life. (not the crack slapping orgy) The travel, the stories, the plates that tell you everything about a place without saying a word. Food isn’t just food. It’s how i understand people. It’s how i remember who i am. Some people chase landmarks, I chase food . When my time comes and I’m standing at those pearly gates, I half expect them to open onto a thousand lobsters backed up with a army of crabs, all with knives, pots of boilng salted water and claw crackers, ready for revenge. After the number of their whanau I’ve boiled, grilled, and drowned in butter, I deserve it. If I go out basted in butter, badly cut curly parsley and lemon, it will be a very honorable end to this chef’s life.
