And then I set fire TO THE EMPTY OVEN

I have a fairly tortured relationship with food preparation. I can’t stand it. Which is a fancy way of saying I’m a lousy cook. If you’re ever invited to dinner at mine, may I strongly suggest you BYO. Dinner. Some of my friends do that and I am not offended. Are you kidding? I am delighted. It’s win-win. All I have to do is open wine and set the table and nobody goes home with food poisoning.

Getting the picture? So when my editor called to gently remind me this was the Food Issue and asked me to write my column with that in mind, I tried to squirm my way out of it. “Look, there will be so much other food content in the magazine,” I pointed out. “I have nothing of real value to add.”
Silence. Editors do this sometimes instead of coming straight out and saying “no”. It still means “no” but somehow it’s scarier. Regardless, I blustered on with my pitch, trying in vain to keep the whine out of my voice and replace it with words pulled optimistically from my backside. “So! I was thinking! You know, with food covered so well by everyone else in Sunday Life, I could write about something different!”
More silence.
“Like…I don’t know, the perils of writing silly things on Twitter! Or something!”
I don’t know how to spell the sound a game show buzzer makes when your answer is wrong but I know you can hear it in your head so just insert it here. And that’s basically how my phone call with my editor ended.
So. Here goes my column about food. Written under duress.

Food and I have not been friends for quite some time. Sure, I had my Masterchef moment, just like everyone else. But it didn’t inspire me to cook, just to sit on my aforementioned backside and watch other people chopping, sautéing and plating (even though I don’t cook, ‘to plate’ is now my favourite verb and I fling it about with gay abandon, for instance, to describe the transference of takeaway noodles into a bowl).
My attitude to cooking is like those who enjoy watching the swimming but don’t actually get wet. Or those who go to Beyonce concerts but don’t re-enact all the moves from the “Put A Ring On It”. Oh wait. I was there and many do.
Anyway, the point is that I’m prepared to watch cooking and even cheer from the bleachers, just don’t expect me to participate or bad things will happen.
It wasn’t always like this. I used to bake for pleasure and relaxation and to nurture those I worked and lived with. I baked with my eldest child from an early age and it was a beautiful time of bonding for us. Now, he cooks and I watch. And eat.

With the younger kids, meals are far more fraught. Small children are not compatible with cooking because they hoover your time, are not great with boiling water or sharp knives, and detest everything you feed them. The harder you work to prepare their meals? The more love, effort and food groups you place tenderly on their plates? The more they detest it. They tell you this and then they throw it to the dog. This breaks your spirit because all you want in life is to see them chew and swallow something green. They understand and refuse to comply, eschewing anything mildly healthy and taunting you by, instead, choosing to eat their own snot. Thanks for that. Not the type of green I had in mind.

My friend Kerri has a non-eating child and she uses the usual sad parent-tricks. “I offer milk drinks at bedtime. I hide bits of meat in his mashed potato. I shove chunks of banana into his mouth when he’s not paying attention. I find packaged foods with movie characters on the wrappers and trick him into thinking they’re really exciting.” Remember that game show wrong-answer buzzer? It’s back.

The paltry culinary confidence I have left was annihilated this year right around the time my interest in Masterchef was peaking. Quite suddenly, I began burning things. Several times recently, I’ve left the porridge on the stove and then wandered off to make a phone call (remember that old insurance ad: “Oh my goodness! The chips!” – I am “Oh my goodness! The oats!”). And then twice in a fortnight I burnt a lasagne. Not even lasagne I made from scratch as I used to do. Oh no. It was Pasta Pantry’s lasagne. All I had to do was pre-heat the oven, remove the plastic lid, put the lasagne on a shelf and set the timer.

I did all these things and yet still I burnt the bastard. Twice. Eating burnt store-bought lasagne was a low moment at our dinner table and inspired me to blame the oven. And you know what? I was right. When the repairman came he took a quick look and pronounced “ Broken thermostat”. Unfortunately, he offered me no absolution for the porridge.

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