Monday, 9 January 2012

I have always been……

A hopeless cook.

I will start this blog with a quote about cooking which is encouraging me to do this blog, as if I was alive when this quote was written I would probably be dead.

“If the skill of the artist had failed, if he had served some ill-prepared dish, the cook was put in irons on the spot, or else was led to the triclinium (dining-room) by two henchmen and severely flogged in the presence of the guests.”
C. Dezobry, ‘Rome au siecle d’Auguste’

Even when I “follow” a recipe it looks like something that would be served up at Borstal (for those that don’t know, this is not a particularly nice former English prison for young offenders). This and having recently got married to my wonderful husband Will who can cook and is a wonderful cook is part of my inspiration for this blog. With our wedding came wedding presents and almost all of ours were kitchen related (without being rude to all those that did buy something for our kitchen as we love everything), i was slightly gutted and much more interested in a “beauville mirror” or hurrican lamps rather than a Sabatier knife set and souffle dishes.

In all honesty I have no idea how to boil an egg, although I think you put one in boiling water for 3 minutes(I will google this is a sec) however, I can make a mean chicken risotto and made a weird Jamie Oliver sausage dish the other evening that William had seconds of (quel horreur!). I have made soups which really were inedible and chocolate muffins that looked and tasted like something you would find at the base of a volcano.

My cooking has been so bad at times, that it has literally been hysterical, a plate or bowl that had made my husband produce a very strange face, followed by a sweet comment like “darling, wonderful effort” which is then followed by a lot of chewing and at times polite gagging.

The thing is, I don’t want to be a domestic goddess, I just want to be able to cook something apart from risotto or a fry up.

And so, the task begins…  I  am going to cook  recipes now and then for the next month or so. These recipes will be chosen from a variety of cook books and even friends and random people’s
recipes. I will “follow” these recipes word by word with the hope that the outcome will show anyone out there like me that can’t cook that if i succeed they definitely can too. Whatever the outcome, the pictures, the mess and the honest opinions from those, if any, which I can bribe to eat my cooking will be posted.

There is also going to be an element to this blog that may help others that deem themselves a bad cook or “can’t” cook. There are a few recipes and dishes that I “can cook” and they are the EASIEST things in the world and even look impressive that I will reveal to you. In fact, when I first met Will, I tried to fake being a domestic goddess with my goats cheese tart that literally takes no longer than 15 minutes to make from start to finish and he totally fell for it (although we ended up dating for 4 years and are now married so he knows the truth) .

I must say, having started this blog for a bit of fun, i am overwhelmed and grateful to those that have found this blog and who are following it. I really did not think that people would find my life as a domestic disappointment interesting, however, i have scoured the web and there are millions of blogs related to food and how good people are at cooking it, there are however, hardly any blogs based on food and those that can’t cook it and those that daren’t try.

our smoke alarm goes off every time i cook in our house, i think most of you know why. At university, i genuinely thought it was ok to put a can ok baked beans in the microwave. it wasn’t and the microwave exploded and i nearly had to pay for a new kitchen.

There has also been an occasion when a supper guest of mine actually refused to try my starter, this is mortifying, no? is my food really that bad?

I have a vague hope that someone may find inspiration from my blog like i have from others i have read and followed and perhaps prove that if i can cook, so can you.