THE CAN OPENER

Can't believe my cooking blog is being reduced to a complaining blog! It seems I am being thwarted at every turn in my attempts to produce meals from my new kitchen. The kitchen I love. It is small but perfectly formed. It has wonderful red units which makes me want to be in there cooking. However the love affair with it really has not taken off. Thankfully this is just a temporary residence for us.

Believe it or not it was the humble can opener that left me frustrated this time. I had started to make soup, the onions were sweating, the vegetables chopped and the stock bubbling away happily. A tin of tomatoes and and a tin of cannelloni beans sat waiting to be opened. Well, in theory they were to be opened! That is where it all started to fall apart. No matter how hard I tried I could not open the cans. I tried all ways. Kept thinking I must be doing something wrong, but let's face it how hard is it to use a can opener? I stopped short at throwing it out of the window and hoped that maybe my husband could do the job when he got home. This was going to be a very outside chance I realised, but I was all I had. In my defense it did take me a month to find out it didn't work. Either I have been cooking only fresh ingredients, or, we have been eating out way too often! What do you think?

My instincts were confirmed, my husband could not make it work, it was well and truly broken. So no soup tonight. Luckily we are surrounded by lots of good eating places and once again supper was abandoned, I would buy a new opener tomorrow, so for now we would simply eat out once again. The soup could be finished off tomorrow.

Hopefully I will soon be publishing a blog which focuses on a successfully completed dish. For my self confidence this has to happen soon, although it won't be happening tonight as we are off to a wine dinner hosted by a local restaurant. Maybe this city living isn't so bad. How important is home cooking anyway? HELP did I just say that. Don't worry I will move out of this mood soon and will once again be enjoying my kitchen exploits.

MY KITCHEN HEAVEN

Haven't been blogging for a couple of days and I must say I've missed it! Although I have spent the past two days in the kitchen, unfortunately I was not cooking. Instead I have been putting hardware on my kitchen units. It seems very strange to me that in a lot of American kitchens there is no hardware, one other difference between our countries. However the job is now complete and I can stand back and admire my handy work. I think it is really important that if you are in the kitchen a lot of the time it should have a nice happy atmosphere. You want to be in a happy sunny place. I love yellow kitchens, it always makes the room so warm and inviting. This time I have gone for a yellow and green theme and for me it is definitely a pleasant room to be working in. Add to that the wonderful smells which emit from the kitchen whilst you are cooking and people should be begging to join you, if not to cook to stand around and chat. I am fortunate, in that I have a fireplace at one end of my kitchen and it is here I sit, on a really comfy chair and delve into my cook books and magazines and think of all the wonderful meals I want to cook, and the wonderful friends I want to invite. It especially nice in the winter with the fire on and the cold shut out. I have surrounded myself here with all my books and I just love sitting enjoying them over and over again. Sometimes I think maybe I am addicted! There are worse things to be addicted to I guess.In the past kitchens were purely places to cook, however over time, with more and more people entertaining friends at home it has become the hub of a home. I know when I have friends over to eat I am delighted if they hang around with me in the kitchen, you can always pass out tasks, even if it is just to open and pour the wine. This after all is one of the more important tasks as I'm sure you will agree. Sometimes we are really casual and entertain very informally around the kitchen island. I really enjoy this as entertaining should be all about making your guests feel comfortable and and not at all in the way. Entertaining should always be fun, not stressful, as this will show in your cooking. Relax, go with the flow, remember mistakes will happen, I have a library of stories which I will at some point write about! Enjoy your friends and let them enjoy your food. I hope you enjoy seeing where I cook and read my cook books. It is my happy place and I hope you have a happy place too.