Kitchen confessions

Guys, I don’t think I’ve ever fully revealed the extent of my culinary ineptitude. I have been reduced to tears upon losing the battle to a jar of pasta sauce, or spilling half a bag of rice grains all over the floor. I have been known to come home, stare into the pantry, and then sit back and wait – absolutely paralysed – for BF to get home because I don’t know what I’m going to make.

To be fair, the reverse has also happened once or twice. But that’s a pretty rare occasion.

If it wasn’t for him (and Food TV) I would probably live off stir fries…of the bottled sauce kind…and pasta. Growing up, I didn’t eat a lot of flavourful food. Most of the food Mum made was fairly plain. She rotated a few dishes, which in hindsight didn’t have a whole lot of taste, but which I ate anyway. Beans. Cauliflower. Mince.

I think it was Eddie Van Halen who once said that at some point, you look at your guitar, and you stop seeing frets. Instead of the fretboard, what your eyes perceive are notes, scales, chords – music.

I’m never going to get to that level. I’ll be happy to play the songs I love. I’d even settle for one day being able to play while standing up.

I think it’s the same with cooking. Some people have an innate sense of texture, flavour and spice. BF has this in spades. If I mess something up, he’s always able to swoop in, shake some magic dust over it and redeem the whole dish.

I’ll settle for one day, being able to look in the fridge and in the cupboards, and whip up something quick and tasty off the top of my head.

The highlight of my cooking this week (fortnight? Month? Quarter?) was chicken with lemon/garlic/yoghurt dip, accompanied by rice risotto – from a box, slightly burnt – and sliced up leftover roast beef. It may sound simple, but I agonised over that yoghurt sauce. I maxed out my knife skills chopping the garlic as fine as possible. And as for the addition of beef – pure genius, once I opened the microwave and remembered its existence, that is.

You may notice a conspicuous absence of real vegetables from that meal. Never fear. I will conquer the greens. That’s going to be my next challenge.