Well where do I begin to tell you about what I have done on this adventure?
A year ago if someone said to me that I would not only be confidently catering for up to 6 guests with less than an hour’s notice but would have
a) the ingredients to hand;
b) be able to cope with dietary requirements;
and c) make it look edible and inviting enough for guests to ask for seconds… then I would have told you to go… well you get the drift 
Now a year later, I am able to do all the above, with aplomb and panache
HOW?
By sheer will and determination not to let my ignorance get in the way
WHY?
Because if I didn’t there was nobody else to take the lead on this. We were all going to either starve or put on even more weight – neither look was really where I was aiming for and certainly not what I would aspire for my family.
Having made the decision to try to get my head around ingredients, equipment and basically everything which goes into having to acquire these – such as shopping (an anathema to me… I hate it and now have developed a phobia!)
So I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves, sat down with my knitting – and thought about it a bit and then a bit more – then had a row with “him indoors”
Then with my usual thoroughness – with notebooks to hand, study aids in the form of TV celebs and their matching shiny bright – published for TV – coffee-table cook-books – the remote in the other hand, and a large gin at times eyeing me up across the desk… I started my journey of self-discovery.
These cookbooks are now annotated and dog-eared – corrections made in pen and now ink all over the text – they look thoroughly lived in…
If you are like me and totally intimidated by trying to work out where to start – and not having come from a culinary inspired and dominated culture… here are some basic suggestions to get you underway.
Try celeb-fusion cooking… (not to be mixed up with any other kind of fusion cooking !!)
I started off with Nigella and Jamie – with a smattering and sprinkling of Hugh – my first cookbooks I have linked here – but suggest you look in second hand shops and jumble sales they are very cheap and the programmes are repeated on daytime TV ad nauseam, so you should be able to record.
One word of warning – the TV and the books have different descriptions and ingredients from each other. Just take notes of what the presenter says and correct the book or index accordingly – saves you hours later on when you are trying to find something…
