From mum’s lasagne to a spontaneous lunch with friends, Alex Rushmer shares the edible experiences he’s most looking forward to in 2021
Carrying reflection and nostalgia through the majority of last year proved to be a burdensome task. With so many avenues of joy closed off to us for so long, I know I wasn’t alone in looking through the kaleidoscope of history to glimpse memories of more carefree moments. January, though, is the point at which we face forward towards the sunrise, not wistfully gaze back at the shrinking vista behind us, and so I’ve turned my thoughts to the flavours and experiences I’m looking forward to enjoying in 2021.
These are by no means grand. If 2020 taught us anything, it is that happiness can be found in the smallest pockets. Rather, they are hopeful vignettes of moments that are yet to occur, ones that I will try to nurture from seeds into fully formed reality as the weeks and months play out. Of course, if a trip to a garlanded restaurant in a faraway country is on the cards, it is not something I would turn down, but, for now, more modest aspirations dominate and I would settle for a drive up the M6 to see my parents. For dinner there will be a request for lasagne because, despite having made several thousand over the last few months, it has been years since I tasted one made by my mum, eaten with a cold salad, slick with sharp garlicky dressing whisked up by dad and accompanied by a bucket-sized glass of thick Rioja. Close behind that, there will be a trip to London to see my brother and his fiancé in a house they moved to during lockdown. He has assured me that he has been honing his barbecuing skills since ‘investing’ (his word) in a Big Green Egg and I cannot wait to taste the dishes I’ve only been able to see photographs of until now.
Professionally too there are moments that I cannot wait for: eating brand new varieties of produce from Flourish and testing new dishes with the team at Vanderlyle a few minutes before service starts. There is also the giddy experience of sampling hundreds of wines at a tasting event and the gradual fading of good intentions as the urge to fully indulge – rather than spit – takes hold.
Come summer, there will be wedding food, too and I care not as to its quality, merely its presence. As well as nuptials, the warmer months bring festivals and tents, and foggy heads have to be revived with crumpets toasted over a flame and mugs of sweet tea. There is part of me that is even looking forward to plastic cups full of swiftly warming, watery beer as a precursor to those foggy heads.
The flavour I look forward to most though is hard to define: what does spontaneity taste like? How does it feel in the mouth, or work its way through the soul? Maybe it tastes like the first sip of a pint of Guinness, surrounded by friends at the end of the working week, a unifying act that needs only the words ‘Does anyone fancy a…’, uttered with a cheeky smile in order to spring into life. At other moments it might be charred pitta bread, falafel and a shared tray of chips, eaten after midnight lit only by the bright glow of a kebab shop to quell the hunger pangs brought on by bellies full of booze. Or perhaps it has the flavour of an unexpected, extended lunch date with a friend that begins with fizz and ends with cocktails several hours later. Whatever format it takes, these little splashes of colour are getting joyously larger as the memories of the last 12 months fade into the landscape.
