The kitchen

Two working rings, an oven forty degrees hot, and one good hour of light. This is what happens between the market and the card.

The method

How a card gets made

Nothing here is clever. It is the same five steps every time, and the repetition is the entire trick.

Cook it badly once

The first attempt is whatever the market had and whatever I assumed. I write down what I actually did rather than what I meant to do, which is usually the more interesting document.

Cook it again on a weeknight

The second attempt is the honest one. If a dish only works on a Sunday with six free hours it is not a recipe, it is an event, and I keep those out of the box.

Change exactly one thing

One variable at a time. It is slow, it is unglamorous, and it is the only method I trust. Two changes at once teaches you nothing except that something moved.

Write the card

What I bought and where, what I did, what went wrong, what I would change. Weights in grams. Times that are true rather than flattering.

Shoot it at ten to four

There is one good hour of light in this flat. The dish has to be plated and on the counter before it, or the whole thing waits until tomorrow.

The photographs

Two frames, ten minutes apart

From above: The same loaf on the same square of counter, two frames ten minutes apart. From above, with the flour left where it fell, is the one that reads as a recipe. From the side, once the light had dropped and started raking across the crust, is the one I keep. Nothing was added to either photograph. If a picture needs more than moving your feet, the recipe is not finished. Ten minutes later, from the side: The same loaf on the same square of counter, two frames ten minutes apart. From above, with the flour left where it fell, is the one that reads as a recipe. From the side, once the light had dropped and started raking across the crust, is the one I keep. Nothing was added to either photograph. If a picture needs more than moving your feet, the recipe is not finished.
The same loaf on the same square of counter, two frames ten minutes apart. From above, with the flour left where it fell, is the one that reads as a recipe. From the side, once the light had dropped and started raking across the crust, is the one I keep. Nothing was added to either photograph. If a picture needs more than moving your feet, the recipe is not finished.

In the light

Taken between four and five

Everything worth eating takes longer than it should

Card 088

Everything worth eating takes longer than it should

Seven hours at a hundred and forty. The photograph took four minutes because the pot had already done all the work.

Flour, water, salt and one hour of attention

Card 003

Flour, water, salt and one hour of attention

Shot from directly above on the same square of counter I have used for nine years. The flour is not decoration, it is what was there.

Steam is the only styling I do

Card 152

Steam is the only styling I do

Which means the plate goes down and I have about ninety seconds. Everything is focused and framed before the pot leaves the stove.

Take it further than looks sensible

Card 176

Take it further than looks sensible

Bread photographs badly when it is pale, and it also tastes worse. The two problems have the same answer.

Ten people, one pot, three hours

The table

Ten people, one pot, three hours

The only pictures I take at night, badly lit and usually blurred, and the ones I keep going back to.

Asked often

The kit, the light and the oven

What camera do you use?
An old digital body and one fifty millimetre lens bought second hand in 2019. The window is doing the work, not the camera, and I would rather you spent the money on butter.
Do you use artificial light?
No, and not out of principle. There is one window in this kitchen that works and nowhere to put a stand. When the light goes in December I shoot at half past three and eat lunch late.
Why are your weights in grams?
Because a cup measures volume and flour does not have a fixed one. Two people scooping from the same bag can be eighty grams apart, which is the difference between bread and a brick.
Can I swap the beans, the flour, the cut of meat?
Usually, and the card says when you cannot. The two places substitution genuinely fails are the judión beans, which are the whole point of card 214, and strong bread flour, which is not the same as plain.
Your oven temperatures never work for me
Mine runs forty degrees hot and I found that out with a thermometer after four years of blaming the flour. Every temperature on a card is what my dial says. Buy a thermometer before you blame the recipe.
Will you write down a recipe of mine?
Sometimes. If it is a family dish that nobody wrote down and the person who cooked it is gone, write to me. That is how the bean pot came back and I am not precious about doing it again.