Pete Moody grew up in Delph and also lived in Diggle and Uppermill before going up to Lancaster to study English in 1996.
He taught himself to cook from the backs of cereal boxes, Chinese whispers and Youtube, deciding the long hours, crippling financial difficulty and a snooker-player complexion were preferable to a teaching career. He is currently starting up a business in Shrewsbury.
TELL ME about your mother. Come on, up on the couch. Go back as far as you can. Tell me about how she looked, what she liked to wear, how she smelled, who she had round for coffee.
No? Ok, broaden the memory. Go back through the pictures, the doing things, the phoning a house and asking for John. Go back through the girlfriends or boyfriends, the portable music devices, the games consoles and the compact discs, the tapes, the records.
Go back through chillout, through garage, through What You Call Music, past Biggie, past Bronski, past Broonzy.
Swerve the bad hair, duck the swinging silicone and get off the bus from town clutching your VHS head cleaner cassette inside your coat hoping you can maybe, just maybe, sort out that copy of Barbarella (the fella’s voice still ringing in your ears, ‘It’s yer trackin’, mate.’)
What are the smells? You remember the Cortinas and the Cavaliers and the MkII Capris, the Athena posters of a naked man holding someone else’s baby, the colour swap pens and the hypercolour t-shirts, even the magic eye dinosaurs (some of you).
But what was on the stove? What was in the oven? With what did you sit down in front of Brucey, Cilla or Saint and Greavesie? Chicken Kiev? Crispy pancakes? Angel Delight?
I remember a baked potato, crisped up nicely in the oven then halved and all its innards scooped out, mixed with a bit of milk, a bit of grated cheddar, a bit of diced crispy bacon and lots of black pepper before being returned to their jacket and topped with more cheese and put back in the oven to brown.
The taste of a Saturday night. The taste of knowing there’s another whole day tomorrow in which to avoid homework.
Tell me about your mother. Tell me what she made for you. Or maybe, just maybe, make it for her this Sunday.
