Out with the Old and in with the New!

Happy New shiny 2009 to everyone!

Today marks the end of a short era for me. Whilst I've always loved eating food, I only became slightly obsessed and learned to cook about 3.5 years ago, not that long after me and the beloved moved in together and I found myself in a tiny kitchen with 3 saucepans and a pack of cutlery and 1 cook book. Now 97 cook books later, in a much bigger kitchen and all is great, I can now cook without burning (okay excluding yesterdays brownies!) and serve up edible, and cooked food!

I had never really kept a diary before, excluding of course the ones I had when I was much younger and had a padlock on the side, full of a 9 year old's secrets abouts boys I had crushes on! However one Saturday morning about 3 years ago, it all changed when I saw a cute, purple, 3 year diary out shopping and decided to start keeping one again. This time around not about crushes, but about what I ate for dinner (and the odd lunch and breakfast!)

Almost in a sad way, the 3 years are now full, stuffed with memories and recipes! I love reading back through and seeing what we had, on a particular date and also the occasional comment:

21/09/06 - Count On Us Lasagne - vile!

I can't remember what happened but the entry for 22/12/06 reads 'Me - carbonara. Went wrong :('

18/02/07 - First time I ordered a steak in a restaurant (bizarrely I thought I didn't like steak, I have since learnt the errors of my ways!).

This is The Diary:

Looking back now I can really see how my tastes and cooking has evolved (hopefully for the better!)

The very first entry reads:

16th January 2006

Battered Chicken Breasts

Vegetable stir-fry

The very last entry is:

31st December 2008

Breaded Camembert with home made cranberry jam and sweet chilli sauce

M&S Rib-eye steaks, with parmentier potatoes, roasted onions and finest peas, my steak glazed with balsamic vinegar and the beloved had chive butter on his

Followed by hazelnut brownie and extra thick cream (though I used 80% cocoa chocolate and unfortunately it burnt on the edges!)

....

Moving forward, for 2009 I have the River Cottage diary, which is really nicely laid out and full of useful notes, which I look forward to adding to!