University Cooking Experiences

During the summer before I started university, my parents tried to coax me into learning to cook. I wasn't a very willing learner though, avoiding it as much as possible, and making everything into a big deal. Could they come and check on the pasta? I wasn't sure if it was exactly right - they simply had to check. And could someone explain to me how to do the eggs? The recipe said to add them to the bowl - did that mean just crack them in? Or should I do them separately? I would be frozen with anxiety, unable to continue until I knew exactly what I needed to be doing. 

Learning to cook has been a big thing for me. I managed to cook a 'proper' meal (didn't come out of a packet) on my second day at university, and even though there are days when I give in and buy a ready meal or just eat toast, I have been trying to cook properly, and it has been a massive learning curve! I wouldn't say I'm a confident chef yet, but I haven't given myself food poisoning - so far...

Cooking à la Joanna - a summary...

- Meals set on fire: Four, or five. I lost count. All last term though.

- Meals thrown away (inedible): Including the burnt ones, maybe 7 or 8. I hate wasting food, but after you've dropped half a jar of mustard powder in your cheese sauce, there comes a point when you have to admit the meal is beyond rescue. 
- Food gone mouldy: too much. I'm learning.
- Peas eaten: 0 
- Meals shared with friends: Too many good ones to count. Eating and cooking together is lovely. 

Lessons learnt:
-If it says 'Do not microwave', Do NOT microwave. One of my plates now has burn marks  all over it. 
- Never drink milk past its use by date.
- Always put open jars of pesto in the fridge. I did scrape the mould off and finish the jar  though...
- Rice: it's half a cup per portion, not a cup and a half.
- NEVER freeze whole carrots. Unless you like carrot slush. 
- Dried spinach is really hard to get off plates.
- Pesto goes with everything. 
- Cup-a-soup is surprisingly nice.
- Mixing everything you like together is not actually a good plan for a meal.
- Cheese is ridiculously expensive. 
-Anything can burn if you forget to stir it...
- A grill is basically an oven, especially if you don't mind your food being a wee bit cold in the middle. 
- Vegetarian sausage rolls explode if you put them in a microwave. 
- It is also impossible to cook lasagne without an oven, but crunchy pasta sheets are still edible. 
- ALWAYS check which ring you turned on.
- Dried anything is really hard to get off plates. 
- Frozen vegetables are the ideal student food.
- Dinner can be served any time between 5pm-3am. Lunch and breakfast are roughly the same with a few hours margin. No, I haven't eaten dinner at 3am. Yet. 
- Ordering in is really good, but takes at least 45 minutes. First you call and order your food, then you call twice to ask where it is, then you call again to let the delivery guy in. It is not a process for the weak hearted. 
- Cooking instructions are only guidelines.
- Unexpected food things happen. Like finding onions in the corridor. 
- Frozen bread is actually kind of tasty. 

And finally:
- Managing to cook a decent meal is really satisfying. 

Tonight I need to use up half a box of tomato posata which I opened to make tomato sauce last night. I was thinking of making tomato soup, but all the recipes I've found seem to require a blender. I could make tomato pasta again, but that seems a bit dull - any ideas from foodies out there? All credit to my friend Ellen, who explained to me in detail how to make a tomato sauce yesterday - I owe you a meal...

Now can I have a few weeks off cooking, please? 

Cook on. God bless,
J.R. x 

P.S. I just had a flash back to the first and only cook book I bought for myself, Cooking Up a Storm by Sam Sterne, which I bought because he was about 14/15 (older than me then!) and I fancied him, but never used it. Did anyone else have this book? Nowadays I use a cooking recipe folder my lovely Mum made up for me, with all my favourite recipes. 

Essay Block & Ash Wednesday

Warning: I basically wrote off the top of my head in this post. (Freewriting, I know these things!) and it contains teenage angst, even though I'm not really a teenager. If you are allergic to angst, the antihistamines are in the bathroom cabinet, and classic FM can be found online. Do not, under any circumstances, turn on Radio 4: our 'politicians' are still teething and having a bad week, bless... Anyway.

It's essay week, and the work is piling up. My deadline for the short essay I'm working on is Monday, and I have at least one other piece to write for Monday, as well as a novel to read for Monday afternoon, then another two essays to work on. I haven't got very far with any of this at all. 

So why am I writing this? I've been staring at my computer for a bout an hour, and frankly, I just need to write. Until you've started, you just can't continue. All of my essays have come back with comments to the effect that they improve near the end, as I realise what I'm doing and inspiration - as well as time pressure - spurs me on. Obviously this is something I need to work on, as I'd like all my essays to be this good, but to get to that point you have to write something in the first place. 

I've been working, slowly, on another post for this blog. I have bullet point notes and a full idea in my head. It's going to be a discussion of the deification of the mortal, and the human dependency on deity-figures (which sounds like an odd topic for a Christian, right?!) with a discussion on how I distinguish between my God (real - to me) and the varying false gods that capture my attention, like the Doctor, although I'm really not convinced by the plot arcs of the last series or so. 

But I've changed my mind about that post. I don't want this blog to turn into some kind of pretentious, moralising space where I post dull, self-righteous essays on my personal morality, and imply that you should follow it too. I'm thinking about where I should go with this blog, and like the essay on realism in relation to George Gissing and Matthew Beaumont that I should be working on, I'm having to re-think what I'm doing. 

I'll probably delete the draft versions of the last post, so you'll never get to see them. I'm not going to promise never to write another essay like the last post again, but I'll try not to. I'm afraid I don't always keep my resolutions; I have been kind of drunk once since my post on drinking, where I vowed never to be drunk ever again. Not dangerously drunk, not I-can't-stand-up drunk, but drunk. And I'm still not into drinking, and I have no intention of getting drunk ever again, but I still did it. I suppose what I mean is that I'm always trying to make things better, myself included, but writing self-righteous nonsense about my choices won't make me a humbler, or better person.

Wednesday this week is Ash Wednesday, and hopefully, I'll attend Mass in the Chaplaincy to be ashed, and make the repentance of sins which starts the annual journey towards Easter. I love Easter and everything about it; it takes me out of myself, briefly. On the Friday afternoon muffled bells ring, a solemnity only given for the death of a King (or Queen). Then there's the solemn wait, remembering, praying, and then at last, midnight on Saturday, and the end of the vigil. Easter, gaudy and bright, named after a pagan festival, commercialised, the day we remember Jesus rising for the dead. 

I'm not very good at Lent, so I still haven't decided how to prepare this year. I know already that if I try to give anything up, I will fail. This sounds a little negative, but will-power is not my strongest personality trait. Maybe I'll take something up, instead. Even if I accidentally miss Lent (like last year. Oops.) I like to do something for Holy Week, trying to pray more, or actually read the Bible, which I neglect too often.

Perhaps this year my resolution will be to listen more. It's to easy to get stuck in your own head, obsessed with your own voice and opinions, and forget to be there for others when they need you, and I think that maybe I've been caught in this trap recently. I know that I'm not humble, and I mean that, even though I'm confessing it here (!) and I'm conscious that in this blog I've been caught up in my own preconceptions and beliefs. I haven't helped anyone else by lecturing them on morality. From now on, I'm going to try to share more and lecture less, and be significantly less prosaic. Also, I'm going to make my posts shorter, if I can bear it...

I'm not sure how to sign this blog post off. I've been saying 'God Bless' but I'm not keen on those words - it sounds like I'm commanding God to bless you, which isn't very theologically correct! And I know that for many people reading this, those words won't mean anything, even if they comfort me. 
So perhaps this: In whatever faith you have, in your faith in your God or Gods, in humanity, in whatever keeps you strong, be confirmed this week. 

Back, for now, to the essays.

J.R.