We never return from a visit to my sister Gillian without booty. Fruit for me to make marmalade or jelly, cookies, cakes, flowers, books, magazines, fabrics, gossip, ideas, and inspirations. Banana cake with the Lynsey-friendly lemon icing, and the – urgh – chocolate icing.

In adding the lemon peel slivers to the cake Gillian really touched a part of our shared hearts. As kids we took great delight in having our very own, just for me, food – a little cake, a dessert made in an individual dish, something just for us. Mum used to bring us home tiny, individual loaves of wholemeal bread – identical in every respect to the full loaves except baby loaves – and just for each of us. We made sandwiches out of our very own loaves, and probably some toast. Back then bread was white, and unsliced, and wholemeal bread, especially presented as a tiny individual loaf, was very special to us. The simple pleasures.

Manifesto
18. Every day express love. Some people need to hear it. Most people need to see it. Don’t take it for granted.
20. Every day say thank you.
29. Every day eat, drink, rest, work, exercise, play, love, create for your own good. And the good of others.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what’s for lunch.
– Orson Welles

If I am to believe what I read then it would appear that we are in the midst of a nostalgic food revival. Retro food is the new fad. This is the food we like to go home to – unpretentious, generous portions, fresh and nutritious, uncomplicated to produce, not an art piece but food that sustains us and warms our souls.

Apparently this revival is being fuelled by the recession and our desire to remember times that were happier. Well, that appears to be the general argument put forward by businesses, journalists, researchers and psychologists. We are apparently involved in a global movement of “emotional” or “comfort” eating.

Let’s face it in times of insecurity we all want some kind of security and this can come in many different forms.

I’d like to suggest that maybe it is more about wanting to go back to times that were simpler at a time when our lives have become more rushed, more demanding and more stressful despite technological advances which promised the opposite. We appear to work longer hours and have to do more in quicker times. “Instantly” is the normal expectation but delivering it has a cost.

Take the sandwich as an example – a staple lunch food for many. What I consider as a sandwich is two slices of bread with a filling cut diagonally to form two triangles. Today’s “nutritional” sandwich is made of  grainy bread of some kind (or gluten free bread or some other kind of something free substitute), preferably with no butter instead using some kind of chemically produced substitute that we are told is better for us, it is usually loaded with all sorts of greenery, fillings and flavours that makes you think you are in a taste washing machine, and is generally so thick you can’t get your mouth around it. To top it all off when you are buying this sandwich in a shop it is invariably encased in some kind of plastic wrapping.

Sometimes I just want a simple ham sandwich for example and do you think I can find one.

Today, my world changed, as a younger colleague introduced me to the Artcraft Cake Shop tucked away in a side street only minutes from our work. From the moment I walked in I was reminded of years gone by and the traditional cake shops and eating places I grew up with. There was the line of pie warmers holding delights like savouries and pies of various sorts, followed by the wall of sandwich shelves with their clear plastic lift up lids. All the sandwiches were sitting in plastic trays and were covered to keep them moist. There were also filled rolls bursting with fillings and old fashioned goodness. As you continued around the shop you came to the cakes section – slices galore, lamingtons, biscuits, iced finger buns, long thin iced donuts filled with cream and the obligatory dob of red jam.

As I stood looking at the sandwich selection I felt excited. At last I could get an egg sandwich without a huge thick layer of spinach and other stuff. I could get a simple ham sandwich if I wanted it. I didn’t have to make these plain offerings at home. Before me lay many choices of simple “retro” sandwiches and each one only cost $1.

I had the best ever lunch today. Back at my desk as I ate my sandwiches followed by my juicy apple I brought from home I felt nourished and energised.This wasn’t emotional eating. This was a normal homemade type of lunch that was all I felt like today.

Sometimes in the name of being “healthy” we overcomplicate things. Gaining balance in our lives is so important and if this is what the current recession is helping us to learn then I say bring it on. I know I still haven’t mastered this in my own life.

Manifesto
03. Every day is an opportunity to reflect on the past.
06. Every day you make choices.
22. Every day refine, clarify and simplify.