Hot new anachronism

An anachronistic dinner, sandwiches on the pier, and several ways with borlotti beans.

Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. This week’s newsletter is about meals from this week. An anachronistic dinner, sandwiches on the pier, and several ways with borlotti beans.

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Hot new anachronism

A last-minute meal with a friend is a creative prompt that I love. Familiar ingredients suggest a new configuration, or I suddenly make something I have not made before. Anyway, I have never baked a camembert before – what an old-fashioned pursuit! – but at the weekend I saw one by the ‘La Rustique’ brand in the supermarket and thinking about my week ahead of parenting solo, imagined myself eating it over a few meals with bread and salad, in a low effort kind of way. But then I invited a friend over at short notice with no thought as to what I would make until I’d put the baby to bed – I assumed I would make pasta – but then I remembered camembert in the fridge. I had the idea to bake it to eat with boiled potatoes, and knew that somewhere there was a ceramic camembert dish I’d once been given for Christmas. It felt like fate when I found quickly – and so I washed off the dust, squeezed in the cheese (which fit exactly - is there an EU law on Camembert dimensions?) added a sprig of thyme on top, covered it with the ceramic lid and put it in the oven. Then, when I was taking the potatoes out of the vegetable basket to peel and boil, I also found a few shallots, which I baked whole in the oven at the same time. There was just enough lettuce for a green salad and when I began thinking about a sweet condiment to compliment the sharp cheese, a jar of my mother’s rosemary apple jelly simply appeared in the fridge and I took it out.

On the table was a bowl of boiled potatoes with butter, a now-liquid baked camembert with thyme, a dish of soft sweet baked shallots in their skins with some fresh mint picked from a pot in the yard, a salad with some baby gem lettuce and the end of a cucumber dressed with Dijon vinaigrette, and a jar of rosemary apple jelly. The potatoes sort of collapsed into the melted cheese in the most delightful way.

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Two lunches on the pier

I whisked two eggs with salt and pepper and some spring onion greens. I saw half a shallot left on the chopping board from a previous meal, so I sliced that up finely. I melted a knob of butter in a pan and added the sliced shallot, when it was softened, I poured in the egg. I sprinkled some cheese onto the egg in the pan. While it cooked, I chopped up some pickled jalapeno and coriander and mixed them with a heaped tablespoon of mayonnaise. I buttered one slice of bread and spread another with the mayonnaise mixture. I folded the disc shaped egg, now mostly set in half and then half again and put it into the sandwich, squirted over a zig-zag of sriracha, closed the sandwich wrapped it up in foil, put it in a bag with six cherry tomatoes, filled a bottle of water and walked to the pier. There, I ate it on a bench looking over the estuary – oof a yacht needs to tack and change direction before it hits the anchored lightship! It will never make it with that strong tide! – while listening to a Dorothy L Sayers Wimsey mystery. When I finished the sandwich, I walked to the ice cream van and had a Mr Whippy, no sauce, with a flake. And then I sat and had that, looking over the water. Then I walked over to the burger van and bought a cup of tea, milk no sugar, £1.60, and walked back to the bench and drank that. I took a call from my partner to assure me he arrived safely at his mother’s with the baby and that she had eaten a little food when they got there and that she would try a bread roll at one of our favourite pubs in all the world.

I whisked one egg with salt and pepper and some spring onion greens. I melted some butter in a pan and poured in the egg. I sprinkled some cheese onto the egg. Then I lightly toasted some bread and crushed some avocado onto one side of the bread with a fork. Then I chopped up some coriander and a tablespoon of pickled jalapeno and spooned it onto the avocado. I folded over the omelette and put it on the avocado and then closed it with the other slice of bread, wrapped it in foil and put it in a paper bag with some cherry tomatoes. I filled a water bottle and walked to the pier. I ate the sandwich listening to another Dorothy L Sayers Wimsey mystery while children dropped crabbing lines into the water in front of me on the pier. Then I went and got a cup of tea from the burger van, and then, this time, ordered an ice cream from the next door ice cream van with my tea in hand – I was eager to get back to writing. It was a different woman who made the Mr Whippy, and she gave me a very small portion. As I walked away, she began talking to her colleague about it, how she hadn’t given a big enough portion, she was new using the machine and they said Shh!!

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Some further meals

Steak and kidney pie bought from a farm shop I’d wanted to visit for a while that I stopped off at on the way back from taking my partner’s forgotten passport to the airport. With steamed carrots, leeks and cavolo nero – added in this order, few minutes between each addition – to the steamer. Brown sauce and mustard on the side.

I deceived Ursula for the first time the other day. I cooked some grated carrot and broccoli with the passata, garlic and olive oil and then blitzed it up for a pasta sauce so she’d have more vegetables but they did not appear as themselves. It was very delicious actually – and she really liked it.

Borlotti beans that I soaked and cooked during the day while I was writing – and then on Sunday night I made pasta con fagioli with rosemary, carrot, onion, garlic, tomato and beans and macaroni. Served with olive oil, parmesan and chilli flakes. Ursula had it for her packed lunch twice at nursery and really took to it according to the nursery workers.

But then I made something even better very, very quickly for a friend and her son who dropped in last minute and who needed to eat within 30 minutes before of both the children went to bed. I fried two sliced garlic cloves in a generous amount of olive oil, added a sprig of rosemary and tipped in the rest of the cooked borlotti beans and their liquor. I added in around 10 cherry tomatoes and simmered until the tomatoes just burst. I served with olive oil and fresh basil torn in. Just wow so good. To my friend and her son’s bowl, I added a fried egg as per their request, but I had it plain.

I served it with a mixture of rainbow chard and cavolo nero, washed and then sliced and then cooked in a saucepan with the lid on firmly, with a tablespoon of olive oil, one whole garlic clove, unsliced and half a cup of water. After a couple of minutes, I turned it in the pan then put the lid back on for a few more minutes. It sort-of steamed itself. I drizzled olive oil on top, which is how my friend and her son ate it – he is not eating dairy at the moment – and I added grated parmesan on top of my greens.

For the baby’s packed tea at nursery, I cut up the pieces of meat from my leftover steak and kidney pie alongside the steamed vegetables from when I had it (carrot, leek, cavolo nero), put the pastry pastry from the pie on top and some sweetcorn in too. I was worried she might not like the pie so put some extra things in her packed lunch box -avocado and cucumber, and leftover pasta from her lunch – but the woman at the nursery said she loved the steak and kidney pie, which was exciting.