Let Me Rephrase That…

I have noticed that at some point in the wee hours of the morning (it’s currently 3:46am) I seem to come over all creative. This means I either end up writing a random blog entry, usually about nothing in particular or of any interest to anyone – see the first paragraph of Sweat, Thanks, Gladiators & Stephen Fry for an example of this – in which my imagination runs riot with itself, or I design or make something.

Today is no different!

However, I think I can put this down to one of two reasons:

1. I am a very intellectual chap whose vast network of neurons takes a while to ‘spool up’, akin to the turbo-lag one experiences in a Ferrari F40. My brain then ‘comes on boost’ early in the morning and my creativeness is off like the proverbial Bat Out Of Hell or pig sh…well, you get the picture.

2. I’m vaguely intelligent but don’t really have a clue what I’m talking about; in the early hours my conscious brain switches off, leaving my subconscious to do whatever the hell it wants. When it comes to writing, this involves placing an array of complex words my brain has stored in the dusty ‘word cupboard of the mind’ (if any of you budding songwriters wish to use that for your new song or album, email me at grahamby@gmail.com) into a sentence in the hope they make sense. During day-to-day living, these words are strictly off-limits for fear of confusing lesser mortals and ultimately, myself.

There could well be options beyond and between either of these two but whatever happens at this time, any defining lines become so blurred they are unable to be reconstructed.

Anyway, back to tonight’s dose of creativity.

Due to society’s lack of time when it comes to cooking, celeb chefs have been attempting to provide us with quick and easy recipes we can all put together in a snip of the time it takes to remove a ready-meal from its cardboard sleeve and pop it in the oven or microwave.

I’m no chef, merely a young chap who likes cooking and, due to health constraints, likes cooking quickly. I feel the following concoction won’t be making it into any of Ramsay’s, Martin’s or even Oliver’s cookbooks, let alone Blumenthal’s, but it is – and I hate myself for even using this term – honest food. Ugh!

So without further ado, here is a fruit crumble you can be eating in less time than it takes to read this blog entry.

Take a bowl – any size will do, it’s your preference – fill with whatever fruit you fancy or have in the house at the time. Today I used strawberries, banana, raisins and raspberries. If you’re going to use banana, I’d recommend chopping it, and removing the greenery from the strawberries if you decide on those too. Take one pot of yogurt (again, the flavour is your choice, I chose apricot) and pour liberally over the bowl of fruit. To finish, garnish with broken up Rich Tea biscuits, sit down with a spoon and enjoy.

I’m not one to worry about presentation when it comes to ‘fast food’. I like to think the meals I put together quickly can be rustled up in a flash by even those as elegant and lovely as Kate Beckinsale*. She can pop to the kitchen in her pyjamas, throw some ingredients together and enjoy the food for what it is, rather than what it looks like. In the same vein, Nigella Lawson’s food is – on the whole – terribly simple, not fancy, but extremely tasty.

Sadly, I fear all this turbo-charged creativity has dropped my fuel consumption into single figures. As such, I’ve by-passed the reserve tank altogether. Time to end. That is all.

*In a similar way to when Johnny Depp challenged Michael Gambon to include Claudia Schiffer’s knickers in each of his answers at a press junket, I am determined to include Kate Beckinsale in each blog entry…somehow.

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