A Day of Crapulence

 

It all crystallized in a moment of morose acceptance - my lunchtime soup (‘lunchtime’ being seven minutes to three in the afternoon) would not have that perfect dollop of yoghurt in it because said yoghurt had been polished off at third breakfast (or second elevenses if we’re being antipodean about it). This is when I realized, my day has, and in all likelihood will continue to be, a day of crapulence. Not one to do things by halves, I have now embraced the mission for today. Eat. Everything.

Defrosting soup that’s been in the freezer for at least four months, toast, more toast, tea til there’s no more tea bags, teaspoons full of honey, raisins, an attempt at eating porridge oats straight from the box, yoghurt and bran flakes, pudding from last week… A day of grazing is what it all adds up to, and in the light of my very heavy-eating week last week, grazing is not quite what the food doctor ordered. Enslaved by my own weakness and exuding apathy and sloth from every pore, I shuffle around the kitchen in pyjamas overlayed with other people’s clothes (it’s too far to go up two floors to get any of my clothes), taking care to tuck my pyjama bottoms into my (sorry, not my) socks for that final flourish of mad-lady chic. I start plotting an article I shall write for Vogue titled ‘The Allure of the Pyjama Pant - a study of a British woman’s obsession’.

The day started out so full of potential. Brisk alarm at seven am, porridge and coffee as any weekday would have it. Carefully steered away from ensconcement in distracting activities like the paper or the news by conversation with brother, I was ready for a day of mind-expansion at the library. And yet somewhere between leaving my porridge bowl on the upstairs landing and watching five episodes of ‘Rev’ on iPlayer before 10.30am, the day all went horribly wrong.

So here I sit, the remnants of past eaten meals strewn around me. It could almost look like I had a great Friday night party and just haven’t got round to tidying it up yet. But no. It’s just me, eating, on my own, for seven hours straight.

As I was desperately trying to spur myself to action and going through the list of productive things I could do with my day, cooking did come up: easily achievable goals; a product to call one’s own at the end… But this only prompted a philosophical thought train of how cooking could be some kind of therapy for recovering addicts or people with PTSD. Meanwhile I turn to the larder, deep in thought about converting the Twelve Steps into twelve levels of cooking and drafting my letter to Jamie Oliver asking if he’ll spearhead the whole operation, to open yet another mini pack of Korean biscuits. It should be worrying that I actually have started to enjoy looking ever more fetid as the crumbs collect on this somewhat bobbly jumper I’m now wearing. It should be.

So there you have it. Validation of this Lazy Student Cook’s mission statement if ever there was one. I haven’t even cooked. No, no wait – I added nutmeg to my porridge. And that’ll have to do.