Beginner's fun

It was a ground-breaking night in the F&F household last night. Brace yourselves...My lad, he who has never cooked (beyond baking the odd brownie and his world-reknowned pavlova), cooked dinner last night! I know - earth shattering!

It's odd - he's very good at baking, but has never ever cooked a meal. He's not unhelpful - if I am utterly sick of the sight of the kitchen (which happens to us all, let's be honest) he'll happily 'cook' by going to the curry shop and buying dinner. But he has steadfastly avoided cooking anything meal-like...and I guess I've been happy to take charge since I enjoy it. But I really think everyone can and should cook, so I have been determined that he should be able to cook at least a few basic things. Poor pestered boy...! Haha.

His major problem with cooking, I think, is not so much that he couldn't do it (because anyone can follow a recipe). Instead it's more that he views cooking as a lengthy, difficult, time consuming process which all seems too hard when he's gotten home from work. And I understand that, really I do. For me cooking is necessary, but it's also usually fun and not terribly difficult because I've been doing it for so long. For him, though, to start from scratch in learning, things are always going to take a lot longer.

One of the big things I think that puts people off cooking, is the unreliability of recipes. Very few "celebrity" chef cookbooks are useful beyond providing the odd bit of inspiration, because their recipes just don't work. And for a beginner cook who has no reason to doubt the wisdom of those they see galavanting about on tv, how are they to know that it isn't them but rather the recipe which is at fault?

So, the lad cooked from a reliable (read: Alison Holst) cookbook last night (sausage casserole, mashed potatoes and peas - nothing revolutionary, but good, basic, easy food which requires very little hands-on time) and I stood along-side offering sage tid-bits of wisdom here and there. All in all, a very successful first attempt. Let us hope there will be a second and third...