Over the years I have come to realise that, as much as I love good food, I can only take so much of it. First of all it’s a physical thing. I mean, aside from when I eat the wrong food (for me), I honestly cannot eat very much at one sitting, which I think is due to the post-op adhesions. I’ve never really been a big eater, but now I can fill up after just a few bites (yes I know, I am massively FAT, and much of that is to do post-chemo and other health issues, but I’m not here to talk about that today).

And so! It’s become important for me to get in as much flavour and variety within those few bites. Which is why tapas are so perfect for me. You can order as many (or few) of these small dishes as you want, and it’s even better when I can share the tapas. In fact, I almost never eat a whole tapa on my own. And this, aside from the physical factor, leads to my belief that I have developed a kind of  “food ADD” over the years. By which I mean that I can only concentrate on one dish for maybe one or two bites before I want to move on to something else. It’s always like “okay, that was great, what’s next?”.

Obviously this does not work so well at home, where I have mostly been for almost a year now. As my @azahar Instagram account will attest, I’ve been cooking up a storm and that has actually really helped me with keeping my sanity, because it’s also a creative outlet for me. But of course, there’s only so much I can eat, and even so much I can freeze for later (because of the food ADD thing I always want to move on…). And so I have taken to giving half of what I make to friends who either don’t like to cook, don’t have time, or in the case of my friend Peter, doesn’t have an oven. And that’s been working out fine.

Another thing that works for me is having some leftovers and then turning them into something totally different the next day. This happened with the photo above, which was me having leftover spinach with garbanzos, then doing a freezer forage and finding some pork-beef meatballs I’d made previously and also a half-bag of big fat prawns. And suddenly I was eating tapas at home!

The only thing is, and the most important thing for me (although it may sound silly), is that I won’t eat anything that isn’t totally delicious. And that could be an exquisite plate of jamón ibérico de bellota, a perfectly executed piece of fish or pork, a great cheesy pasta casserole, or it might even be just some lovely hot buttered toast. So it doesn’t have to be fancy, it just has to be REALLY GOOD and also just what I am wanting to eat at the time. Are you like that too?