‘My 10-minute meal would be a piece of chicken or a piece of fish, and I chop up a whole lot of herbs, a little salt, olive oil, and pack this on both sides, and I just cook it in a cast iron pan 'till it's all brown. Meanwhile I boil up some new potatoes and I have a salad and I make a vinaigrette that goes over everything. That's 10 minutes. But it's not 10 minutes if I haven't thought about the salad in advance, having found some herbs and grown them in my garden”.
Alice Waters' 10-minute meal, as disclosed to the perceptive Catherine Cleary in The Irish Times just over a week ago, is one of those prescriptions that is so simple it has the profundity to change your life.
If you want more of this simple profundity, you will find it in Ms Waters' latest book, “The Art of Simple Food”. The food is as simple as Ms Waters talks it and walks it, and it is also a very beautifully designed book, published by Clarkson Potter.
Give a copy to your children, or at least to the inner child trying to find profound simplicity in cooking and eating.
