Now, before you get too excited, this isn’t a tale of debauchery. It’s about food.
Like many of us, I’ve drifted into the modern world of sourdough bread, multi-seed loaves and ancient grains. Bread that comes with tasting notes and a promise of long life. Apparently, it’s very healthy.
Then, now and again—and I suspect it coincides with a full moon—something changes. You’ve been good all day. Muesli and fruit for breakfast. An apple for lunch. A pear and walnut salad for dinner. You are practically a wellness influencer.
Then, around eight or nine o’clock, the transformation begins.
It starts with a thought. Harmless enough.
“A few chips would be nice.”
Five minutes later, you’re standing in the kitchen staring into the freezer like a man who has forgotten why he came in, except you know exactly why you came in. You’re looking for chunky chips.
Not skinny fries. Not sweet potato wedges. Proper chunky chips.
And they have only one rightful home: wedged between two slices of Pat the Baker Mega Bite bread. Thick white slices with enough substance to survive the journey from plate to mouth without collapsing.
Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cookery School fame once famously described this type of bread as being suitable for wallpaper paste. Sorry, Darina, but when the inner werewolf appears, a delicate oatcake with Ballymaloe relish isn’t going to cut it. It has to be a chip sandwich.
The chips are piled high, a little butter melts into the bread, and the first bite is magnificent. It’s soft, crisp, salty, comforting, and completely at odds with everything the nutritionists have been telling us.
The guilty pleasure. This is the pleasure.
The guilt arrives the next morning when you mount the bathroom scales.
The full moon has gone. The sourdough returns. The pears and walnuts are back in favour.
Until next month.
