Well Slap me with a Spoon and call me Mrs. Beeton!

I had an unexpected burst of literary and culinary creativity the other night. It may have been due to the welcomed bank holiday break and the knowledge that my snotty, cold-infested state would prevent me from going to work the next day, allowing me to stop obsessing about NHS targets and actually unwind a wee bit.

Whatever the reason, I had a bit of a Conran moment in the kitchen (though I feel more spiritually akin to Floyd) and came up with a dish so spendiferously, lip-smackingly good that I spent the evening in a warm fug of Smug.

Now what I usually do when this occurs is think "gosh, that's tasty, must remember how I made that" then promptly forget and spend many heart-breaking hours in the kitchen trying to recreate the glory of that lost dish. I seem to do this on an alarmingly regular basis. Early senile dementia, one supposes...ho hum. So, several months ago, I bought a journal for the express purpose of noting down the receipe of anything tasty I make.

Then lived off 3 minute noodles and muesli bars for a couple of months while my work went into the stratosphere.

Anyway, this distressing state of affairs came to an end with the aforementioned culinary moment (Prune and Flaked Almond Wood Pigeon Tagine, for the interested) and I opened the virgin pages of my journal to jot down the receipe.

2 hours later I was still writing, having penned several pages with titles such as 'The Difficulty of Woodpigeon', 'Cream: A Tale of Unrequited Love and (tummy) Trouble' and 'How not to eat Oysters' grrr...

As a consequence, its less of a standard cook book than an odd gallimaufry of strange foody opinions, receipes and anecdotal tales. Incrediably user-unfriendly, but since I'm the only one who will read it, it doesn't really matter does it?

And it makes me giggle.

Specially the bit about the oysters.