For years, I thought a proper family meal was supposed to look like a table full of food.

Perhaps that came from living in Italy.

My mother-in-law could turn dinner into a collection of plates: vegetables here, meat there, cheese, salad, something else on the side. I also watched her make risotto the traditional way — adding broth little by little, stirring patiently for half an hour.

It was delicious.

But somewhere inside me, the Shanghai girl was thinking:

Thirty minutes? Standing here?

I miss my rice cooker.

Rice. Water. One button. Done.

That was when I began to realise that every food culture has its own kind of genius.

Growing up in Shanghai, I knew kitchens built around frying, stir-frying, boiling and steaming. In Europe, I discovered the oven — and the wonderful possibility that dinner could cook without requiring my constant attention.

Today, my London kitchen belongs to nowhere in particular.

On a normal weekday, three timers might be running.

Rice cooker: 40 minutes.
French beans: 20 minutes.
Salmon: 18 minutes.

And me?

I'm somewhere else in the house.

I also cook according to my energy, not just the clock. If I'm already making lunch, I look at the empty burners and think: Why are you three doing nothing?

So I cook a little extra.

Vegetables chopped at lunchtime might become salad first, then soup with potatoes and meatballs in the evening. By six o'clock, when my energy has usually become considerably less ambitious, half the work has already been done.

Sometimes dinner really is just one pot.

Years ago, looking at my mother-in-law's beautiful table, I might have wondered whether that looked a little poor.

Now I see it differently.

Carrots, spinach, potatoes, meatballs — everything is there. My husband is happy. We're warm and full. And instead of six plates and three pans, there is one pot and two bowls.

That is not a lesser dinner.

It is simply dinner that fits the life we're living.

Of course, some days I want to cook. A rainy afternoon might mean homemade pizza or cake. A celebration deserves a table full of food.

But an ordinary Tuesday evening doesn't need to be a celebration.

After living in different countries, I've stopped asking which way of cooking is the “right” one. Our kitchen has quietly borrowed what works: an Asian rice cooker, a European oven, Italian flavours, one-pot meals, and whatever happens to need eating in the fridge.

I used to think feeding a family well meant doing more.

Now I think it means knowing when more is worth it — and when enough is enough.

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