I did all the things I used to watch you do - browning the meat and onion first, a bottle of red open on the table: strictly for the chef, of course. Hot stock, for the best texture. But I didn't consciously think of you until I chucked in the fromage frais, right at the end. You always used sour cream - that dairy hit does amazing things to the way it feels in your mouth.
I remember watching spellbound as you made my first risotto (not long after the amazing mussels pasta), in that house in Sydney road beside the Anarchist bookshop, where you always had a window open, the trams would rattle past at all hours and the floorboards were always dusty and gritty beneath my bare feet. There were beaten up couches and crazy housemates, but you always had good plates and fat, fabulous, colourful wine glasses. You made me dozens more risottos in the years that came after, always ordering me 'outta my kitchen. Mine. Out' - so that when I lived in Carlton I was actually trembling as I tried that first time to make it for myself.
Since I've lived in the UK, I've made several people's 'first risotto'. Kim. Brenda. Zoe took notes so she could replicate it. I like the idea that my friends of today don't have to have met you, to carry a piece of you with them too.Whether they know it or not.
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