Cooking With Logan

This is barely creative writing and barely a cooking post but it will have to do for now. Call this the third installment in my Logan trilogy if you like. In it I examine what our solitary old fellow does on his Sundays at home. Much of it is defined by meals.

It was a Sunday and Logan Mallee started it by splashing cold water in his face and drinking some with his morning tablets. Next, he got to work on a breakfast of grilled mushrooms on wholemeal toast accompanied by a glass of diluted mineral water. Yes, Logan was frugal, but in this case he was just taking the edge off the sharpness of the bubbles. So far, the elderly pensioner had been working in his pajamas, slippers and dressing gown, but now he took a quick shower and got dressed.

Logan was staying around home today, but could not resist taking a quick walk around the block, in the hope of running into some neighbours taking their dogs out. That done, he returned home and got in some gardening while the morning was still cool. He had never been much of a gardener, and the condition of the yard showed it, but he managed to keep to within neighbourhood guidelines of acceptability, and his few cultivars added interst to his cooking.

Next thing Logan knew, it was morning tea by his own reckoning, and he returned to his kitchen for some coffee, a handful of cashews and an apple. Following what seemed like a short rest, he got onto some household chores, while listening to radio news and talkback. Logan did the dishes, put clothes on to wash, dusted and sorted the clutter of the past week, all the while muttering at whatever somebody was saying over the airwaves.

Lunch for Logan was satisfying yet easy to prepare. He simply dumped a small tub of pre-made potato salad into a bowl along with a small tin of smoked salmon and threw in some finely chopped herbs he had grown. He chased this with more diluted mineral water. Next, Logan went into the living room and opened a window that had long ago been enclosed by the back extention of his house. Now it simply allowed music to flow into the study behind it. He put something on the record player and got to work at his desk.

There was always something to sketch or resketch. Local sites arrayed around the walls included some shops, a milkbar, the library, his favourite eatery, a community hall and a sports field. Right now however Logan was reworking an old sketch of his last and, he had to admit, favourite dog. He wondered whether he should get another one or if he was just too old to ensure its welfare beyond his own lifespan. Putting such musing behind him, Logan remembered that he had planned to sort some paperwork but, on glancing at it, decided to put it off till another day.

Anyway, it was time for afternoon tea, and Logan had a hot cuppa with honey and lemon to go with some crackers topped with soft cheese and dill pickles. Following that, it was time for a nap, so he returned to his bedroom and settled in for an hour or so of scrambled sepia-tone memory. Some time later, the sounds of lawn mowing and muffled chatter woke Logan and, gathering his hazy wits, he got clothes in from off the line.

It was getting cold so he put on the living room heater and set to work once more in the kitchen. For dinner, Logan found that baked beans from two tins was so much better than from just one. He combined diced tomatoes with cannallini beans in a pot and added spring onion and garlic. Once more, he had the weakened bubbles to wash it all down. Logan had nobody but himself to blame for a hearty fart as he rose from the table.

In his warmed living room he watched some telly. A game show and a situation comedy entertained him. They were a window onto a wider world he spent less time in now and, even as he knew it was fluff and fiction, it still helped him feel more connected to something. A lot of the shows he had enjoyed in his prime seemed to be back in re-hashed form, and the small changes were interesting. Everything old is new again, he mused, except for Logan himself.

Eventually, it was time for a mug of hot chocolate, a handful of almonds, and some blackberries from the back yard. Following that, he prepared for bed and washed down more tablets with water. Logan read a few chapters from the spy thriller he was currently reading. With that reminder of the past settling his mind, he drifted off once more, wondering what the coming week would bring.

The meals described here fit my image of 'old codger food' while also fitting notions of what I enjoy. I have play-tested this one-day diet and it can just about satisfy me at my current age.