Anyone who eats at my table is loved there – and I confess to feeling relieved that I don’t find myself preparing meals for people I might only consider an obligation. I don’t have to perform as someone’s partner with the joint diary, the tit for tat of mutual social upkeep. I try to think of the kitchen as a theatre of self-creation. Sometimes it’s as simple as putting pickles in a pretty dish and laying the table. Or slicing up fruit and arranging it on a plate that makes the colours vibrate. Other times it’s the rejection of restraint when cooking for one. I always feel defensive when people say ‘I don’t bother when it’s just me.’ It’s not that I don’t value convenience and simplicity – I love supermarket tortellini and instant noodles as much as anyone – but I infer from their words that they don’t think I am worth it. I’m not saying that cooking myself a five-pan, six-hour meal is a radical act, but it says my pleasure is worth investing in, is worth putting love into, even if I don’t always believe that, even if sometimes I feel profligate, greedy, unsatisfied.