If you suddenly become a foodie

When people used to come to eat at my place, they got salad with cheese and Chokotoffs for dessert. Thank heaven and praise that I met a man who could actually cook well, which made people enjoy spending a few hours at our table.

Then I did learn something (a soup here and there, a little pasta, grilled vegetables, that worked out fine) and I am quite good at visiting caterers and serving nicely, but a chef in the making? Meh.

But suddenly, I don’t know what has come over me, I am a foodie. I spend hours in the kitchen. I am simultaneously cooking three dishes and well… This is all that happens when you, like me, suddenly become incredibly passionate about cooking.

1. You read cookbooks instead of showing off with them

They were all there, the Ottolenghis, The Silver Spoons, and the Giorgio Locatellis, but looking into them was a whole different story.

2. You find out that a lot of cookbooks are incorrect

For example, yesterday I left four red onions in the oven for two hours at a temperature of 180 degrees. Oil should have been added, but Giorgio didn’t say that. Result: biting with your mouth.

3. Your cookbooks are suddenly dog-eared

Because where there’s chopping, there are splinters. So also in the kitchen. My beautiful ‘How to Become a Divine Housewife?’ by Nigella Lawson (quite a peculiar title by the way, as if that is the holy grail, but I forgive her for the brownie recipe that I have now completely mastered) is now stuck together with butter.

4. You suddenly ask the greengrocer for wild garlic

And flat-leaf parsley and all sorts of other things that your greengrocer doesn’t have.

5. You plan your day around your culinary activities

We can walk the dog for 45 minutes, because afterwards the salt needs to be removed from the eggplants and the onions need to come out of the oven.

6. You have a homemade vinaigrette ready.

7. In your fridge, there’s a homemade passata that you can always use in a dish.

8. In between, you bake some Italian cookies.

Guys, I don’t know what’s going on with me, but my family is spinning and purring. Now quickly to the gym before I grow shut.