Culinary Expertise

Tonight my boyfriend and I are playing host to yet another leaving party for a few of his University friends that have ended up in the vague London area.

And I thought, in an attempt to appear the dutiful girlfriend (and also being awkward when it comes to takeaway buying, due to my 'food issues'), I'd cook.

Although back in the day I tackled a home economics A-level (which was, contrary to popular common room mocking, not cooking but an indepth study of nutrition and sociology, although I did have an exam in the different methods of cooking sausages), I'm the first to admit my culinary skills aren't exactly what they could be.

There are, like any self respecting vegetarian who attempts to win over the hearts and minds of those who mock the claim that a tasty meal can be created solely using vegetables, a few staples within the wafer thin mental cookery folder that I have collated (I'd call it a book but I'd be done for incorrect trade description).

I can make chilli.

I can cook a variety of pasta based dishes (the variety being the combination of vegetables, the sauce remaining a distinctly tomatoey colour and flavour throughout the permeations).

I can do wonders with Sosmix.

I have also recently added curry to my limited repertoire (with a pre-bought sauce and a few chapattis thrown in for good measure).

And, of course, I can cook beans (as long as someone is willing to scour their scarred remains from the bottom of the inevitably charred pan, because, even though I tend to them regularly, they lie in wait until I'm turning bread under the grill, and weld themselves in a bizarre suicide ritual to the metal).

I also have an unhealthy obsession with mushrooms and will try and sneak them into any meal, appropriate or not. Woe betide any guest who has an aversion to them, as poor Ms B does, because they'll be in there somewhere. Unless I have been kind enough to create a unique dish for my fungiless friend, and this is only usually because I want to add a healthy amount to the recipe in question.

Cookery books, sadly, do not capture my imagination.

Possibly because I am rarely organised enough to buy in food relating to a specific recipe and then if I do try to match the random vegetables that I bought in excess (to add to the previously uneaten ones, abandoned in favour of the instant satisfaction and hunger relief beans on toast provides) I am usually lacking several key ingredients and my dish, whether accompanied by cous cous, rice, pasta or a large amount of any other carbohydrate to weigh down my guests, will eventually just be a vegetable dish. Often with a healthy dose of lazy chillies and garlic.

Another personal culinary downfall is that I refuse point blank to taste my food while in the cooking process.

I am not sure where my phobia of cooking food comes from, unlike my fear of wooden sticks and balls (of any kind, not wooden), which are, obviously, grounded in reality. I can only presume it is through repetitive tongue burning, although I can never remember testing food to burn my tongue, only having the fear of this outcome.

Which means my meals may taste intensely of the chosen herb or spice (or, to be honest, just chili) or be completely tasteless and bland.

I am not a risk-taker and do not tend to enjoy functional cooking, and therefore my meals will remain wholesome (in quantity, rather than quality) but yet lacking in excitement. Although give me a glass of wine, a kitchen with plentiful utensils (I will use every one, but at least I clean as I go) and enough time spread out before me and I'll come up with something that, through the joys of an alcohol-laced tongue, will be exquisite.

But, as I have rarely been bestowed with all three magic ingredients (pardon the poor pun), this doesn't happen all that often.

Tonight, Matthew, I have chosen pasta, with a combination of vegetables.

Safety in Durham Wheat and a few carrots.