It may come as a surprise to you that I have been known to pay the odd visit to our kitchen.
Usually, it’s with a tea towel in my hands, but now and then I venture in because I rather fancy myself, unwisely, as a master of pastry.
For some very basic, challenging echo of a long-lost reason, probably gleaned by a fighting forebear on the fields of Agincourt or Culloden, or at Trafalgar, I rather enjoy endeavouring to conquer and lie, flat on its face, the odd aggressive sheet of belligerently flapping filo or pugnacious puff and to paste up on my imaginary floured board the score of Roger 1. Shortcrust Nil.
But pastry is a fighter. Possibly the only genuine confrontationist in the kitchen. The Charlemagne of the pantry. Challenging from the moment it decides to slide out of its cardboard castle and dares you to touch it before it thaws. Try to challenge it and it snaps at you. No rolling pin can make it move a muscle until it’s ready to move. But move it will, all over the board, growing bigger at every roll and twisting, wrinkling and buckling at every turn. It sticks to the roller when you want it to lie flat and it breaks away when it should be curled neatly on the edges.
And then, when you think you’ve fought it into submission, it’ll unwrap itself from the sides and wave an edging at you, or open itself in the middle as you’re pouring in the meat or vegetables. It’s then that you discover that half of the cover is lying on one side or it’s about an inch too short, all around. With a satisfied plop it returns to the board and looks up at you.
Puff 1. Roger Nil.
Burnside Writers Group 