Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Oh dear

That was, probably without question, the shittest meal I have cooked in memory.

Now I am no Jamie Oliver/Gordon Ramsey (although I have the language down pat), but I usually cut a reasonable swathe through the kitchen. When I cook for someone else, I generally get sincere compliments and not irregular expressions of pleasant surprise at the food I produce. I tend to, whatever I turn my hand to, try to do things properly. Even if I am going to be no genius at it (like relationships, for example...) I at least throw my all at it (so to speak, given the last example) and allow my perfectionist side to come through.

My Bolognese sauce is pretty damn good and probably my speciality in it's various guises. I cook, on a regular basis, from entirely fresh ingredients. Marinated Tuna, Carbonara sauces, Ratatouille and fresh vegetable stir fries, while probably simplified, are all fairly normal. But today I just decided to be lazy, cook a pork chop, heat up some sweetcorn and make some mashed potato to go with it.

How the fuck do you screw up Mash anyway? I have no idea at all what I did wrong. I lost track of how long it boiled for - not exactly unusual, I rely on feel for a lot of things (*ahem*) - but even so the grey, slimy glutinous snot that I ended up with looked like some sort of industrial effluent.

Yuk.

If I hadn't been on my own, I'd have thrown it out. But I ate some of it because I couldn't be arsed to wait till I made more, and it was crap. And to top it all, the wine that was pretty poor yesterday had really not improved from being open (albeit with a vacuum cork in it) since yesterday.

Yuck.

I am washing the whole lot down with a new bottle of red now. I shall drown it into submission, although I have taken most of the nasty taste away with chocolate biscuits, if I'm entirely honest...

posted by Brock @ Tuesday, July 19, 2005