Food is not just fuel

I was a late starter in the kitchen, I never cooked when I was a child, my mother guarded her territory jealously and whilst at boarding school the food was so abysmal it was difficult to maintain enthusiasm for any meal. It was not until I left home for art college that I discovered the pleasure that preparing meals and feeding others could bring.
At first I knew nothing and Campbells tinned meatballs on spaghetti figured large, then I was given this


This was Delia, pre Delia, a wonderful, very basic cookery book, easy enough to encourage a beginner but there were also recipes that gave you the chance to test your new skills. I discovered so much, how you could vent frustration by kneading bread, save money by making seasonal meals, boost your ego by having a souffle rise. It was a whole new world and I loved it.

Then came marriage when I found (after the traditional pre-wedding diet) all the stories of wedlock widening were true. When we had the children disillusion began to bite. (unlike them). A food loving mum had produced 2 picky children. As babies they had eaten everything but once they were toddlers they opted for the right to be individuals. We never actually re-enacted "Spring and Port Wine" with people glaring at an unloved herring, but it got close. One ate pasta, the other rice, crusts on, crusts off, no mince, what ? No mince ? No wonder I despaired. Cooking became fuel not fun, the same favourites being recycled with momentous regularity. Tedium very occasionally leavened with the chance to truffle through my cookery books when friends came for a meal.

Now I have time to cook, to experiment, to taste and I am so happy. I know that sometimes it will go wrong, I will forget a vital ingredient, turn the oven to the wrong temperature or make something so unspeakably awful we can't bring ourselves to eat it, but I am going to have fun trying.