Lifelong Cooking

Josh, this blog is for you, an online version of the notebook that seems to have spent the last 12 months open on my hand written recipes for chilli con carne or spaghetti with peas and bacon in cream sauce. I have taught you only such a small amount of what you could have learned, but actually that was never the point - I don't want to train you for a career in food, I just want you to have an appreciation of good, healthy food (and some foods not so healthy!); to understand that what you eat has such an impact on your whole being; and that food, and more precisely, cooking, is not something to be afraid of but to indulge in for all its sense of achievement, sociability, and enjoyment. Sometimes what you are cooking won't turn out right, sometimes you will set the fire alarms off or burn the pans, sometimes the first mouthful will be inedible (as will the second and the third), sometimes all you will be able to afford is a packet  of cheap sausages (although I hope you have learned that good fresh food and pulses are cheaper than ready meals and fast food) - but that is no different to life as a whole, so be thankful for the experience, learn from it and know that next time it will be different. So have a passion for food, and a passion for life, but don't cover that passion in snobbery - remember that a tin of beans smothering toast on a Sunday morning can be one of the best meals in the world. Obviously if the baked beans are homemade and the bread from a granary loaf, all the better! And just remember that, unless you are baking (where cooking turns into a science to raise cakes, bread and pies), a recipe is a guide and some meals can never truly be written down because often the best meals come from using up what is in the fridge or vegetable basket.