Keep Calm and Eat Out

While cooking might be something that I enjoy doing, unfortunately it's not something I'm particularly good at doing. Growing up on a farm, you'd think that it would have been part of my schooling to learn to cook a good roast or malva pudding...and looking back, perhaps it was. But then came boarding school with it's mass produced meals followed by university, where the Rhodes caterers seemed more concerned with creating hangover cures than health meals. Mixed grill Thursday's come to mind.

I'm surrounded by friends who are great cooks, if not trained chefs, who are contantly treating me to fabulous meals. Do I reciprocate? HELL NO! Come to my place and we get pizzas delivered!

I'd be lying if I said that I remembered where exactly it all went wrong, but let's recap on some of my less than successful culinary attempts of late: there was the time when, after dating my amazing man for a little short of a month, I invited him over for dinner and decided to try a new dish suggested by a colleague. Big mistake. I'm still trying to ascertain if she had it in for me and if the dish was doomed to fail from the start. Failing sabotage...I must have just stuffed this chicken dish up royally. Now, my amazing man has a particular preference for chicken (I did mention that he is black, right?!) and after seeing my distress in the kitchen, he valiantly came to my rescue and salvaged the dish to the point of making it edible. Why he stuck around I still don't know, but he did mention that previously he'd had a rule that he would never date anyone who couldn't cook chicken!!

And then more recently there was the risotto. OK, so I knew that this would be a tough ask, but after watching hundreds of episodes of reality cooking shows, I thought that I had it in the bag. But no, 2 hours later and 2 mouthfuls in, the bin was fed the biggest portion of food it has ever seen (and probably the most expensive too!)

I don't mind too much when I fail at something when attempting it for the first time, but what does bring me to tears is when you've mastered something (hollandaise sauce comes to mind) and then you lose your touch. There is no greater culinary frustration for me!

And so for now, I keep it simple, shop at Woolies, keep calm and eat out.