Ac-cen-tu-ate the Positive

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years and worked behind the scenes on television programmes such as MasterChef, de Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too hesitant to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje vents weekly about what occupies her. This time: the columnist’s doubts.

I have a list on my phone with little ideas for this column. Sometimes I don’t look at it for weeks; sometimes I scribble down a few things every day. Some notes are impossible to follow when I read them back. ‘Sustainable My way’, for example. WTF did I mean by that? Me? Something to do with sustainability? What then? Why? Or: ‘Eat bird embryo thing with M. – see bucket list’. No idea, and a bit gruesome too. Deleting is not allowed, I agreed that with myself. Maybe it will become brilliant later. A bit like those Dr. Martens you’ve kept all these years, at the bottom of a cupboard.

Van der Valk

‘What do kickboxers, or gypsies, or asylum seekers eat?’ might be a good one. Or: ‘How are things with…?’ followed by a list of faded stars (Martha Stewart, Jeffrey Steingarten, Nigella Lawson). But does anyone still know who they are? And does anyone care? ‘Chef’s Table heroes’ or ‘Pellegrino Top something guests’ might be a better angle, but a little pretentious. Closer to home. ‘Chef’s tattoos’? ‘My mother’s birthday’? ‘My weakness for Van der Valks’? These are still just my own notes, you know…

Silent column

I used to be pretty happy with my opinion, but now I don’t really know anymore. These days, everyone seems to have one: an opinion. A very grumpy one, or a bourgeois one, or a scared one (or is that the same thing?), or an ugly one. What are you supposed to do with someone else’s opinion? Ergo: what is someone else supposed to do with mine? Shouldn’t I write a silent column for once, or one without any opinion at all? Could that be something? Or is that weird?

Big bum

I check my old columns for the presence of an opinion. Vegetable garden: nice and light, an opinion about myself. Dirty words: an opinion, but funny. Culinary fundamentalism: a strong opinion about having an opinion, so I think you can cancel those out against each other. My big bum: fact, no opinion. So it’s all not too bad, when I read it back like this.

Tupperware Party

I’m getting inspired again. ‘Fly-fishing’. I really need to write that column. It’s so cool to do, absolutely everyone likes it. Except people who think it’s sad for the fish, of course. Damn. Not them, then. Okay. ‘The Tupperware Party – does it still exist?’ That one’s fun. A party. With plastic, admittedly. Is plastic still allowed?

Go away, all of you, with your opinions! I don’t want it!

Want to read more by Lotje? You can find all her columns here.