Language evolves, nouns turn to verbs. Recent Olympics have given us to medal, now from Covid we have to bubble. Not as in sparkling wine or simmering stock, but to enter a bubble.
Even before the great easing of 4 July, and the free-for-all as sure as eggs is eggs to precede it, we were given the right to bubble. A single person can enter another household, eat, drink and make merry, even stay the night – so long as the arrangement is exclusive and monogamous. Even if this was intended for those with the most pressing family, relationship and social needs, it still gave us an opportunity. There are just the two of us and we have a few friends who have been on their own for these last three months. Would one of them welcome an invitation to bubble?
Well, yes. And so last weekend we had the excitement of a guest. A live guest, not on screen; a guest eating food that they hadn’t cooked themselves.
Lockdown has treated us kindly. We have not suffered the pressures and strains, frustrations and uncertainties, cabin fever and frayed tempers – daily life for many, we realise. Tuula has continued to prop up her part of the NHS day-in, day-out. She contracted Covid the day after lockdown was announced, like many of her colleagues before and after her. It was a horrid couple of weeks but she didn’t need medical intervention. We also had the challenge of a non-Covid death – not unexpected and exceptionally peaceful but nonetheless in these strangest of circumstances; some aspects were perhaps made easier, others more difficult.
My routine hasn’t changed much at all. Other than when I travel, I work from home anyway; Zoom was a way of life for me long before the rest of the world started taking up my bandwidth. We have missed evenings out, for cultural or feeding purposes, but this became the opportunity to cook six nights a week. And the magnificent traders at Bermondsey Spa Terminus and Borough Market have kept us supplied, even when the supermarket shelves were bare. Some judicious stockpiling of celeriac, cabbage and the like sustained us through our two weeks of total self-isolation.
But what we have definitely missed is being able to have others around our table. The chance to bubble was therefore not to be missed.
We looked forward to it, perhaps without fully understanding why. Afterwards, we understood more what we had missed: planning the menu, the effort of cooking in the hope that the food will bring pleasure, ditto with the wine, the conviviality of conversation, the chat about the food, the satisfaction of seeing an empty plate. These are, I suppose, the touchpoints of hospitality and why we do it. Any giving can be self-centred, but I think we honestly aim for something genuinely mutual.
As for the food, it was not my finest hour. Cups of chilled lettuce and pea soup (Anna Jones in the Guardian) were nice, and a years-old Nigel Slater way with asparagus – with smoked trout and basil-anchovy sauce – was as good as always. We started and finished asparagus season with it with precisely three months in between. But the barbecued leg of lamb, such a staple for guests (never more than once, you understand…), fell short of its usual flavour. Perhaps it was because I butterflied it myself… For some reason, the sides also came in a bit bland. I shall not again be tempted to use up some baby carrots by adding them, diced to pea size, to the usually chirpy new potato, pea and walnut salad – the carrot seemed to subtract from every one of the other flavours. Even our trusty warm red onion and rocket salad (Jamie) lacked its usual appeal. A garlicky broad bean side (Abel and Cole Cookbook) was better. It was also bigger than expected – I discovered why when there were no broad beans left for a pasta dish a couple of nights later.
The food wasn’t the point. Even though we have been more than happy in our own company – at times relishing the lack of pulls on our evenings and weekends – the relief of having someone else to cook for, to sit around our table and to interact with in person, was more important. And that point was proved: we have missed that.
I don’t imagine we’ll be rushing to take advantage of the next easing to have more people to dinner – even one metre(-plus?) would be difficult around our dining table for a start. But, in the meantime, we recommend the joy of bubbling.
