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Meat tenderiser
‘I head to the kitchenware section and pick up cheffy gadgets.’ Photograph: Getty Images
‘I head to the kitchenware section and pick up cheffy gadgets.’ Photograph: Getty Images

I’m determined to improve my cooking skills – first, to master the big shop

This article is more than 6 years old

Few things scream sophistication and maturity like a posh packed lunch

There are many things I have yet to learn on my journey to proper adulthood. But if there is one thing I know to be unquestionably true, it’s that Monday’s packed lunch is the greatest packed lunch. That’s because it usually involves Sunday’s leftovers and Sunday, with its leisurely hours, is the day we mere mortals can rise to culinary greatness.

Few things scream sophistication and maturity like a posh packed lunch. But a midweek posh packed lunch? That is a different achievement altogether.

At my last job, one of my colleagues became renowned for hers. Every day she dazzled the staffroom with her Tupperware treasures, which were better than most people’s dinner-party best. Her meals conjured flavours from all over the world: lamb tagine with saffron, slow-cooked beef, coconut fish stew. “It’s just leftovers,” she’d say meekly when she’d catch me staring, clutching my sad half-pitta sandwiches filled with hummus and self-loathing.

“I want to be like her,” I’d think. Sure, a flashy car would be nice, and owning a holiday home (or any home) but in lieu of those pie-in-the-sky dreams, I’d be happy with my humble crust… provided it was an exotic-sounding crust usually found at street food stalls from £7 upwards.

And I’m determined to do it. I’ll need to improve my cooking skills – a monumental feat involving many hours and YouTube tutorials. But more pressingly, I’ll need to master the big shop – one of those bicep-breaking expeditions where you buy stuff for the “pantry” (or my designated cupboard in the flatshare) – flour, spices, stock; items that yield no immediate return and if used incorrectly can ruin a meal.

Still, she who dares wins, she who dares add flour to sauces without really knowing if it will form clumps, and she who would probably eat it anyway. I am ready to eat lumpy gravy in the name of progress, spinning my trolley around at the sight of the ready-meal aisle saying: “No! I will not give in to convenience.”

Instead, I head to the kitchenware section and pick up cheffy gadgets – spiralisers, mandolins, meat tenderisers and other things that looked easy enough to use on MasterChef even if they could land me in A&E – before whizzing between aisles collecting ingredients that menus single out to sound impressive (hello truffles!). And I won’t even do that thing where I run behind the trolley, lean over the handlebars and lift my legs, using it like a sled and saying “wheeeeeee” down the aisles.

Because I am a grownup now, and as my teachers used to say: walk, don’t run.

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