Dining 1

My contribution to fine dining is preparing dinner about once a week. There are two limitations at play here. First, that is about my productivity limit. Second, that is about as much suffering other diners are willing to subject themselves to. Some of these other diners may think the adjective fine is inappropriate. I have come to an age where I accept my delusions as reality.

Some notable people have a better understanding of food. I rarely come across them because the last thing I want to do is read or talk about food. For 25 years (1999 – 2024) Jay Rayner was the restaurant/ food journalist at the Guardian. Fifteen years of that was at the Observer Food Monthly (OFM), one of the Guardian’s other publications. Rayner decided that he wanted to bail out when that publication was sold. So in 2025 he become the food critic at the Financial Times. While at the Guardian, he had produced 180 OFM columns, of which the last one was published 2025-02-20. I am reading his column for the first time!

I will now attempt to interpret Rayner’s advice for people who eat to live.

1. A table should be big enough to hold all of the dishes that are going to arrive.
2. Food should be served on plates or bowls.
3. Rayner encourages restaurants to provide small sharing plates.
4. Wine? Here I will insert my own advice. It is unnecessary. Drink water!
5. Servers should always write down orders.
6. Eating alone is dining with someone you love.
7. Food stains are a badge of honour
8. Great food can be found in the most atrocious of locations.

1. Individual foods are not pharmaceuticals
2. Eat a balanced diet = proteins, carbohydrates, fats.
3. No foods provide detoxification. Use your liver and kidneys.
4. No foods are dirty, that is moralizing. Some may be unhealthy, that is different.

1. Fat is the seat of flavour.
2. Salt should be avoided even if Rayner wants to indulge in it.
3. Rayner believes brown and messy foods are the best foods.
4. Picnics are a nightmare.
5. Buffets are where good taste goes to die.
6. Add bacon for taste.
7. Hyper-expensive foods are about status.

1. Good food takes skill to prepare and time to cook
2. Avoid cookbooks that use words like simple.
3. Eating a slaughtered animal comes with the responsibility to eat as much of it as one can.
4. Don’t share home produce with neighbours, without asking.

1. Tipping should be abolished.
2. All restaurants should use someone over 50 to test:
   • print size on menus
   • if lighting is bright enough
   • if seats are comfortable enough for a lengthy meal
3. A server should not have to explain a concept.

As you may have observed, I have left the headings of each sequence to be added by the reader.

Furniture making is an area where I do have some, admittedly limited, expertise. For example, I am sufficient adept to know that I should never attempt to make anything resembling a chair. I have made benches. Tables are another matter. A firmly held belief is that people should only sit along two sides of a table, not at the head or the foot. The most appropriate personal area at a table is about 60 cm in width by 45 cm in depth. For me, a table has width, depth and height, but not length. This means that most tables should be 2 x 45 = 90 cm in depth. The width should be 60, 120, 180 or 240 cm depending on whether it accommodates two, four, six or eight people. Special purpose larger widths can be made, if necessary. In the past years I have built two tables, one for eight people following this advice, and one for two people that does not. This other table is 45 cm by 120 cm. It is for two people sitting beside each other, looking out the window at the lawn, flowers, trees, fjord and hopefully various birds, possibly even butterflies, a deer or two on occasion. In addition, it can be used by the primary cook when she needs more preparation space than is provided by the countertops. This table can be folded down when not needed.

These tables are made of oak, even if ash is my favourite wood for furniture making. I am also fond of beech. While Trish uses assorted Tripp-Trapp chairs and has no desire to change, I decided that I could buy my own, personal dining chair. It is an Ikea Lisabo designed by siblings Knut Hagberg and Marianne Hagberg. They worked at Ikea from 1979 to 2020, designing 2100 products = over 51 products a year. I have not been able to find the year this chair started in production, but some other products in the series date from 2016.

Béchamel sauce is a creamy French white sauce that’s used in many dishes. For some, it is easy to make.

Note 1: Wikipedia tells me that a roux is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove top, blended until smooth, and cooked to the desired level of brownness.

Note 2: There are two numerical values that follow a description of a temperature. The first indicates stovetops with values from 0 to 10. Our induction stovetop allows heat from 0 to 14. These values have been used with descriptors.

Ingredients

• butter 90 ml.
• flour 60 ml.
• milk 1 l.
• salt none to minimal
• grated nutmeg 1 ml.

Directions

• Gather all ingredients.
• Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat (5 or 7).
• Add flour and whisk into the melted butter until smooth.
• Cook and stir until flour turns a light, golden color. Uses about 7 minutes.
• Increase heat to medium-high (7 or 10) and slowly whisk in milk until thickened by the roux.
• Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low (3 or 4) and continue simmering until the flour has softened and no longer tastes gritty, 10 to 20 minutes.
• Season to taste with nutmeg.
• Serve hot.

Final advice: Kitchen knives at holiday rentals should be avoided. Take your own.