Not the Cafe Paradiso cookbook
Perhaps somewhat more portable than my other christmas present, I was given a book by vegetarian restaurateur Dennis Cotter Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me. Cotter’s third book follows on from two succesful cookbooks based on his Cork restaurant Cafe Paradiso.
Readers may, I suspect, have guessed that I am very much a meat eater. It’s not that I don’t like vegetables – I do – but I can’t abide by vegetarian food (and don’t even get me started on pescatarians, vegans, fruitarians or any of the other myriad fads.) However, I did feel the compelled to at least try the book out. I found a recipe that looked intriguing and made it: carrots, baked in cider with garlic, ginger, and cumin.
I have a major problem with the book – Cotter is supremely arrogant. Not just in the me-me-me autobiographical aspects of the book (which are lengthy, frequent, and dull) but in the same way I find vegetarians on the whole to be. I fully accept some people, for medical reasons, can’t eat meat, but those who don’t out of choice have – in my experience – been arrogant: they have an ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude and look down on anyone who dares to eat meat as somehow morally inferior and to be pittied. Frankly, they can get on with it for all I care. They will never know they joy of that first bite into a bacon sandwich; the joy as a little blood seeps from a perfectly-cooked steak; the simple pleasure to be had in cooking perfect crackling…
But I digress. The carrots were, on the whole, alright. They were different, in a good way, but then I have a real love of cumin. We enjoyed them with roast potatoes, parsnips, and red cabbage. Oh, and one final thing: some succulent roast chicken.