Hardeep Singh Kohli

Published on Sunday 17 May 2009 00:30

DOES my bog standard shopping make me a basket case?

In my experience there is only one domestic scenario worse than opening the fridge, groggy-eyed, early in the morning to find there is no milk to accompany your coffee: and in the bathroom the cardboard crisis of there being no loo roll at that most crucial of moments.

To avert both catastrophes, I realised that I had to visit the supermarket. My fridge is an embarrassing clich in so far as its ever-present contents extend only to a bottle of champagne (a gift) and some cheese (a

self-purchase). I like to think of the fizz and the cheddar as the microcosmic balance of my life: the necessity to eat and the potential of celebration.

Wandering round the aisles and fridges of a supermarket might at first seem an innocuous enough process. But for me there is now a deep sadness to shopping for food. As a dad and a husband for years I spent every Saturday morning birling my trolley roond the aisle-lands of Waitrose. I absolutely loved it; it seemed the shelves offered an escape from my drab and dull world. I would take as much time as I liked, unrushed, unfazed and unconcerned by what might be happening around me. I had bigger thoughts to contend with. There were recipes to be created, new flavour experiences to be had and firm favourites to be enjoyed.

The disparate seven days ahead would slowly be shopped into some sort of order; food would impose a coherence on the future week, food that I was central to choosing. There was an overwhelming sense of catharsis as I checked out, relief that there would be some semblance of normality; it's astonishing how much comfort can be garnered from the knowledge that Tuesday night be predicated upon a meal of chicken curry and rice.

When the weans were wee they were compelled to join me, be part of my celebration of chard and chicken, beetroot and beef, flour and fish. This adventure would also serve to give their weary mum a morning off. As they grew older they peeled off one by one until I returned to family shopping as a solitary pursuit.

And now supermarket shopping for me is truly a solitary pursuit. Having once easily spent in excess of a hundred quid on a cornucopic trolley full of heterogeneous delights, I now find myself swinging an almost empty basket around the shops. I look at food I used to buy and now I walk on by. My life is such that I can comfortably spend weeks never eating at home; hence there is little need to concern myself with groceries.

No more was this painful reality made clear to me than on Monday. As I stood and shuffled in the queue to check out, my basket in hand, I found my eyes absent-mindedly wandering to examine the contents of my fellow shoppers' potential purchases. Each basket told a story. I wondered if the middle-aged man was planning on combining the chicken thighs with the pak choi and butternut squash? Did that lady really need seven tins of Ambrosia Creamed Rice? Were that young couple intending to travel their baguette, olives and hummous to a quiet corner in a park and nibble and kiss the evening away?

And then I looked down at the contents of my own basket. A 12-pack of toilet roll, a couple of pints of organic milk and a bottle of whisky. I couldn't help wonder what other shoppers must have thought about me. I'm not sure I knew what I thought about me.

Sum thing to chew over

A friend of mine has challenged me to a dim-sum-off. He loves the delicious Chinese dumplings of delight as much as I do. We have had two meetings thus far, the first at his favoured restaurant and the second at mine. Thomas and I are due to meet again. The only problem is where? His place, my place or a new, third place? Since we both love our food, it's safe to say that we win some and we dim sum some.

Think pink and suit yourself

Brave men wear pink. Actually, the truth is a man wears pink if he wants to attract the ladies. The logic is quite simple. Women apparently like the colour pink; this is why they wear it. Therefore if they see a man wearing pink they are attracted to that man. I have to say that this reckoning had very little to do with my decision to instruct my wonderful tailor Mr Nick Oliver to craft me the finest suit he could from yards of baby pink corduroy material. And I was over the moon and well on my way to Saturn when the suit arrived last week.

Regular readers may be aware that I have had in my possession a fuchsia suit for quite some time; this new suit is quite different veering towards a more pastel take on pinkness rather than the electric quality of the fuchsia version. And I do realise that by mentioning this I am begging the question about how many pink suits does one Glaswegian need.

There are distinct challenges with a baby pink suit. What colours can one accessorise with it? A lilac or pink turban (my favoured colour) cannot possibly be twinned with baby pink: too much potential for the wrong sort of clashing. I opted therefore for a very simple, hopefully elegant look: black turban and matching tie, white shirt and the aforementioned suit. I was indeed a brave man; I have to say, however, that the theory about attracting ladies is deeply flawed. I spent the evening untroubled by any female company. Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming the suit: maybe that was down to my lack of entertaining chat? No, it must be the suit.

Picking up the pieces of a lucky break

Sometimes good luck and bad luck combine. About a year ago one of my favourite paintings (by Michael McVeigh) fell off the wall and headed floorward. By some dint of chance the frame fell on top of a coffee table. Now this is no usual coffee table; this has two large hollow sections built into the top, a place to slot magazines and papers. The glass predictably shattered: bad luck. Fortunately the glass managed to shatter directly into the two large hollow sections of the coffee table: good luck.

Not wanting to upset my good luck/bad luck blend, rather than count my blessings and spend all of five minutes emptying the smithereens out of the hollow I counted my blessings and left them there; for a year. Until Wednesday of last week when for some reason I decided to clear them up. Luckily for me I managed to carry out the action without injuring myself. Which would have been bad luck.