The Times Magazine 7SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
here are four primary rules
for giving happy supper
parties: a) only ask people
you really like; b) never ask
strangers; c) only serve food
you can prepare in advance;
d) anything else is nonsense.
Seeking to impress, being
competitive, introducing
X to Y, cooking pretentiously – this is the
path to humiliation.
Well, it’s been a long time, but I’m rolling
out my rules again. I need to see people. I need
to see them because my social life is, frankly,
a disgrace. I’m stuck, out of touch, stale and
too much of a hermit. Mrs Invisible with the
introvert’s shrinking world. This is not the true
me. There are things to learn, good people to
be with, interesting debates to be had, and I’m
missing all of them.
And kitchens – never dining rooms, oh no,
nooo, ghastly places – are much better than
restaurants for talking in. Which is why people
are just going to have to come to me.
My problem is that Dave doesn’t really do
supper parties. On one hand, being married
to someone who’s wildly sociable is bliss. He’s
chatty and entertaining and thrives on people
and news, which means I’ve got a first-class
ticket for a lazy life. Zero effort required. But
the down side is I have to go to the pub to
experience it.
He has never seen the point of socialising
at home, especially with food. It means work.
He’s supposed to help, take responsibility forpassing stuff and filling glasses, and generally
act like a grown-up, all things he’s not very
good at. Besides, food is just fuel; drinking
is business. He likes the freedom and the
potential of a pub: that sense that anyone in
the world could open the door and walk in.
So if I want to do it, I just have to get on
and organise invitations and then tell him
who’s coming. On my terms, not his. When it
came to planning suppers again, I’m rusty, but
I’ve never forgotten those simple parameters:
good people, easy food.
Catering for others feels a little ambitious
to contemplate, when I can barely look after
myself, but I have the disability card to play- who, after all, could possibly pass negative
judgment on a wheelchair cook? Nobody.
Similarly I put up only a mock protest when
guests offer to bring the pudding.
I had a soft launch in the summer. We
simply ordered a large number of curries which
Dave fetched from a restaurant in town and
we ate at home with friends who go out as
little as me, which meant they were onside even
before they started eating. It was a successful
evening, although we ran out of wine. A rookie
error! The shame of it. I blamed Dave.
A couple of months later, some family came
to stay and I practised a lamb tagine on them,
which seemed to work, but then again, family
are never going to criticise, are they? But I was
building up the confidence to believe that if
I pursued one-pot slow cooking, leaving
stuff alone to melt all day, then it might be
unrecognisable but it would still be edible.
The first proper test came a couple of weeks
ago. I invited a group of busy friends I had
been trying to get together since late 2017,
when our date was cancelled by months of
ice and the Beast from the East, which left
me housebound.
All the cooking was done in advance.
A learning curve. Pulled pork, cooked for
about two days in the bottom Aga. OK, but
desperately messy for me to prep. French
potato pie – which needed another 45 minutes,
so we didn’t eat until 9pm. Green beans. And
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference red cabbage
and apple disguised as homemade (I did
confess later). Everyone seemed happy, but
the disadvantage of disability cooking is you
never know if they’re humouring you.
Anyway, the pace is hotting up and the
diary groans with food dates. We have a
FaceTime meal this week with London and
France – the set recipe is piri-piri chicken. And
I’m getting ambitious – I’m making saltimbocca
chicken for six at the weekend. Bonkers,
exhausting, but exhilarating. Mind-washing.
“Looking forward to Saturday,” someone
said to Dave.
“What’s happening?”
“We’re coming to you for supper.”
“Oh,” he said.
And came home and asked me why
I hadn’t told him. n@Mel_ReidTimes
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after breaking her
MURDO MACLEOD neck and back in a riding accident in April 2010
T
‘We’re having a
dinner party for six
on Saturday. Only
problem is, Dave
doesn’t know yet’