First post: Nigel Slater's Walnut and Coffee Cake

So - this is it, first post...

A couple of weeks ago I saw the film Julie/Julia on one of the flights from London to Durban en route to a conference, and ever since have been contemplating the wisdom/stupidity of trying something similar...

For those that don't know, the film is based on the book of the blog The Julie/Julia Project, which was started in 2002 by Julie Powell who set herself the challenge of working through Julia Child's 1961 book 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' - 536 recipes, in 365 days.

Am currently trying to decide on a book with a slightly more manageable number of recipes, and somewhat less butter/cream in each recipe (read some of Julie's blog - yeeks, it's amazing her and her husband survived the year without major coronary problems...). I've been considering a number of possibilities... a Nigella tome (nooo - too much butter/cream again!), Delia Smith's complete cookery course (maaaaybe?), a Jamie? (too trendy?), an Antonio Carluccio? (decided against a particular region of the world/type of cooking), The Food and Cookery of Malta by Anne and Helen Caruana Galizia (possible but again, a single country theme, and there's a LOT of pastry..., my bête noire*), maybe Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merrett (much more interesting than the title suggests, some really good recipes but only c.100 recipes in total - wahahaa, glutton for punishment, moi?)...

Current front runner is Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries - 184 recipes (plus 9 extra which are included in the list at the start of each month but not set out like the rest, so an absolute total of 193), good mix of types and styles of food, plus the added bonus that it's based on the seasons which will add an extra challenge/interest/usefulness as I'm a bit pants at knowing what's in season when but would like to be better in the interests of sustainability, food miles, buying local, etc etc.

Kitchen Diaries has been done and blogged in a year before, Maggie Don is nearly there with over a month to go, which gives me hope that it's doable, and I'm hopefully going to get some good tips from her blog along the way :)

We have a teeny tiny kitchen, which causes me to swear, stamp my foot, slam doors and break things (accidentally and deliberately) on a regular basis, which should add to the fun! But I love cooking, and we have to eat, and I like trying new ideas and recipes...

Husband's response to the idea was 'do I have to eat everything?' which I'm taking as full and complete assent to the idea. Answer to the question, for those who are interested and know how picky the hubbie can be when he wants to be, is 'no, but you have to at least try everything', which I think is a fair trade :)

Plan isn't set in stone, and I'm damned if I'm going to kill myself trying to cook everything within a year but I'm going to have a jolly good stab at it! To celebrate, I baked Nigel's Walnut and Coffee cake. And mighty fine it is too - mmmm. I should note that my presentation skills with food aren't marvellous, maybe this will help hone them to a degree!



* don't get me wrong - I LOVE pastry, adore the stuff, but am cursed with warm hands which make for terrible pastry-making. Also, see butter/cream issue :)