My Own Devices

Last night I cooked for myself - the second time in about two years. And I ate a bowl of ganache. It was a small bowl but more on that later. Ironic - since I started this culinary adventure I hardly ever really cook at all. I mean I´m a three-star parrot but I don´t cook my own food. The last time was in Paris. I had a lot of Hong Kong style noodles left over from a cooking lesson for my friend Mort Rosenblum - and went on a pan fried noodle binge - Cantonese pan fried noodles with scallops and wood ear mushrooms with raw and caramelised green onions. I swear someday when I have my own restaurant that I will only have Fish, Meat, Dessert, etc. on the menu - no long descriptions. So last night Rafa´s was closed. No fresh fish. I´ll try again this week. We clean tomorrow and Tuesday - but start early and finish early - 9 to 5ish - almost like normal people. So last night - 2 eggs, 2 stale El Bulli rolls, a tomato, some manchego, an unidentified can of seafood - it turned out to be tuna in oil. Beat the eggs - with a little milk - really needed one more egg - salt, pepper. Broke up the bread - hard as rocks - tossed it in to the egg mixture, threw it in the fridge to soak. Sliced the tomato into 4 fat slices - poured off some of the tuna oil into the pan - seared the tomato until a little burned around edges and nice and soft inside - just the way I like them - and plated them off. Flaked the tuna into the pan with the rest of the oil - sauteed until there were some crispy bits - of which I ate almost all. Tomatoes back in, poured the egg and bread mixture over - let it just set around and then took it off the heat - damned electric burner. Crumbled some manchego over. Back on the heat for a few seconds - quick flip - plate - and ate. With a mini bottle of cava for one. For dessert took a few squares of Chocovic chocolate - got some bars from one of the chef de parties coming back from the demo - chopped that up - poured some hot milk over - no cream in the house - and made a ganache. Crushed some cornflakes into a bowl, topped that with a slice of membrillo, some ganache over, and a few spoonfuls of a local ewe´s milk yogurt - sold in a little terra cotta pot to finish. Stared at that leftover ganache for about three seconds - poured in some more cornflakes - and ate the rest of it.