"I wish I were seven years of age and standing in my mother's kitchen in Sutton, Co Dublin, and she's just made egg-in-a-cup - a boiled egg chopped up with a drop of milk and a pinch of salt.
I only now realise it was a PR spin to get me to eat protein, with the added bonus of stretching two eggs between my brothers and myself. When I'm feeling down, I sometimes make it myself, poshed up with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt. But it's missing the mammy's love. Or perhaps I'd like to be 26 again, and sitting under the Bordeaux night sky after a hot summer's day by the beach. I've rushed straight to a garden party and the first blush of sunburn is on my face and the taste of salt is on my skin. My host hands me a bowl of chilled melon soup with roasted garlic and a touch of sherry. The cool liquid soothes me instantly, as the extraordinary combination of sweet and savoury hits my palate.
BUT I'M NEITHER . . . So I might prepare my midweek pasta dish of tinned ventresca tuna (belly of tuna) with the zest and juice of a lime, melted sweet onions and silky pasta I've made myself. It always astonishes me when the simple ingredients of egg and flour transmogrify into fresh pasta. As I take my first mouthful, I realise that the simple act of cooking has banished the daily stresses from my thoughts.
In conversation with Marie-Claire Digby
Ross Golden-Bannon is editor of Food & Winemagazine.