Do Yourself a Huge Favour!
Learn to Cook
This, my first post on Medium, is really an explanation of why from now on I shall mostly be banging on about food and cooking!
Learning to cook was one of the best things I have ever done in my life and this is how it happened.
When I was little I had no interest in food or cooking. In my teens I got engaged (as we did in those days) and started having real asleep-at-night nightmares of my new husband starving to death as I couldn’t feed him. My Mum bought me “Supercook ~ an Encyclopaedia of World Cooking” which was published in 112 parts.
After reading just a couple of editions I was hooked; I’d had no idea there was so much variety in food, so much potential and that with a little bit of effort it was all available to me!
Once married Ray (that’s his name — we’re divorced now but I’m still glad I didn’t starve him to death!) and I made a rule that once a week we’d have a meal entirely made of ingredients and/or dishes we had never tried before. This was in the 70s so there was a lot of scope; all sorts of interesting ingredients were being “discovered”– aubergines, avocados, yogurt and so on. We so loved experimenting (me with cooking, him with eating) that we then did what with hindsight seems to be a very peculiar thing!
With no business experience, hardly any eating out experience and in our very early 20s we sold our house and bought a rundown hotel in Cornwall in partnership with my even younger and equally inexperienced sister and her husband. We opened a restaurant, and then another one and that’s how my cooking career started. Well done Mummy!
So now, even though I am completely and utterly self-taught, I eat wonderful food every meal of my life, feed my Real Man according to his own peculiar Geordie tastes and I have travelled the world on my abilities as a chef — so it’s certainly worked for me!
Probably you won’t want to take things quite that far and I realise that some people are daunted, as I was, by the very idea of cooking but I promise you it is not difficult. I can do it so probably most people can! OK, there are some dishes best left to the experts (soufflé, crème brulée and oseng oseng wortel dan bloemkool for instance) but good home cooking is achievable by anyone who puts a little, and I do mean a little, effort into it.
Learning to cook is so very worthwhile, in brief you can …
Save Money * Waste Less * Help the Planet * Eat Delicious Food *Avoid Chemicals * Get Healthier * Pamper your Loved Ones * Feel Proud!
Now I am retired-ish and spend my time cooking, eating and writing about it (or “sitting on the settee” as my darling calls it) on my blog Sudden Lunch! in my books and now on Medium.
I write about food, ideas, recipes, suggestions and useful information in the hope it will help other people get on with eating delicious food of their choice, at little cost, whatever and whenever they want made from good pure ingredients, huge portions if they like, in the comfort of their own homes.
As Julia Child said …
“This is my invariable advice to people …
Learn how to cook ~ try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun!”
I agree with her, learning to cook seems like a no brainer to me!!
Please, if you enjoyed this post, click below to recommend and/or share it.
