My gourmet delight was… bland!
The trouble with living in the same house at two budding Gordon Ramsay’s, is that if you are not outstanding in the culinary area, it is easy to start to feel rather inferior in comparison…
The other day I made us all a vegetarian spaghetti bolognaise, usually a well accepted dish; that was until my husband started to make it instead, using my recipe. Suddenly my version is ‘bland’ and had to be ‘tweaked’ to come up to the minimum standard for consumption! I admit, his version tastes way, way better… but still!
As if that is not bad enough, my 15 year old daughter, inspired by the Master Chef of the house, is now taking some certificate courses in professional catering at school, turning into her own version of Nigella Lawson and I am rapidly becoming obsolete in the kitchen!
Now there is a good and a bad side to this. The bad side, as I have already mentioned, is that I have started to get left behind in the culinary area. The tastings that happen, the comparing of this spice adding this flavor and that ‘tweak’ saving the taste of that gravy, has left me feeling rather like ‘Woody’ from A Toy Story.
I learned to cook from my mum and from cookery books and from the old fashioned ‘home economics’ at school, where some ‘matron like’ woman would stand over you and make sure you did everything according to the book!
These days, Jamie Oliver has given us all permission to tear basil instead of chopping it and food preparation has become so much more laissez-faire! So while ‘Buzz Lightyear’ and apprentice, waft their way around the kitchen, along with the delicious aromas, I find myself feeding the cats, folding the washing and sitting on the internet with a glass of wine…
The good part, however, is that it is rather wonderful to be married to somebody who is such a great chef (if he had wanted to be) and who has inspired our daughter to love all aspects of food preparation, tastes, etc. I do not have to cook anywhere near as much, as I find it a chore and they actually enjoy it!
So when my dish had to be ‘tweaked’ to become edible the other day, I thought I would remember how they labeled my spaghetti ‘bland’ the next time I am enjoying my glass of wine and doing something that I enjoy too! 
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