Traditional British cuisine has been described as rather bland. The country's favourite dish is the humble fish and chips, which means just that, fried fish and French fried potatoes.
This doesn't mean the British are lazy in the kitchen, quite the contrary. In fact, home cooking is rather a national obsession, the weekly best seller list always include a cookery book in the top ten. Not only that, you can find recipes in any magazine or newspaper in circulation in addition to add to the vast amount of resources from the internet.
This ready wealth of information is enough to make a non-domestically trained wife to become a force in the kitchen. But it was only quite recently that my interests went beyond roasted meals and pasta dinners to take on the more intimidating field of baking.
When I said I could follow a recipe, I meant just that. Without any prior knowledge (or efforts to obtain such) on the art and complexities of cake-making i.e. creaming, whipping, folding, etc., I have managed to bake and decorate chocolate birthday cakes for two of my friends on their birthdays, in addition to the weeknight baking sprees to make John his favourite Bakewell cake and different flavoured cupcakes. Only once did my mixture fail (I blame the recipe book for that!) and so far no one has complained about any incident of food poisoning (Hurrah!).
My husband reckons its another one of those momentary hobbies that I tend to take every so often in my desire to become a proper housewife (the arty kind) and in a few months they will be set aside on the bookshelf just like my photography books, scrapbooking materials, painting sets, bookbinding covers or sewing fabrics that would be on my list of things to restart as soon as interest in the latest hobby has waned. But fad or not, at least its been proving a source of pride and enjoyment at the moment. Plus, I'm sure he rather likes to be the first to taste them too!
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