The Kitchen Crusader.

A dear friend of mine once remarked, as she deftly produced a tray of mouth watering muffins that "Cooking is a science. Follow the rules and success will be yours!" Well, I stunk at Science in high school and I double stink at cooking. So much so that Tokyo Gas has been known to cordon off the area around my house whenever I so much as rattle a baking tin. I`ve spent hours slaving in the kitchen, cookbook bound back in a torturous position, gleaming shiny utensils at the ready but the end result is nearly always the same. No matter how accurately I weigh out the ingredients, mix, blend, stir, whip, spoon, beat or scream at it, the end result  looks nothing like the picture in the cookbook. Okay, I hear you all say, trying desperately to be diplomatic and encouraging, the proof is in the eating. Uh, uh,I nod. But would you like to try something that looks suspiciously like a three day old turd from a terminally creature?

I have to give it to my kids. They`ve managed to find their niche and settle in comfortably with my culinary catastrophes. But there again, it probably just boils down to a simple case of survival. You have to eat to survive. There are only so many days you can go without food. What doesn`t kill you only makes you stronger, right?

Only the other day, strumming through one of my many cookbooks, I came across `Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies`. `Chunky` and `chip` as in `chipped` are words that could be easily used to kindly describe my previous endeavours, so I took up the gauntlet.

I weighed and mixed everything to a `T`. I swear I could hear Delia cheering from the heavens above. Into the heated oven they popped. My little brown masterpieces soon to be thrown into scrumptious stardom. A mere fifteen later and the balance had once again shifted to inedible infamy.My little spoonfuls of chocolate heaven had merged into one giant cookie pie. Not to be daunted, I dug out a knife and uttered a few soothing expletives.

"Aren`t cookies round?" asked one of Batboy`s friends, eyeing up the plate on the table as if it were a giant cowpat. "Well!" I exclaimed sunnily," There are all different sizes and shapes of cakes and cookies in the world! These are my very own Volcano cookies. Der Der" I sing to a crowd of seven year old boys looking not at all convinced. "What`s that in the middle,Mummy?" asks Batboy, fingers poised. "What`s what?" I enquire, a touch of impatience colouring my previous optimism. "Oh, that`s part of a melted M & M," I quirk back," An orange M & M." I add with authority. Silence then, from another lad. "It looks like poo when bits of food come out with it!" and just as I was pondering why anyone would be studying their poo poo that closely, the room burst into laughter and wee hands grabbed handfuls of `Volcano cookies`.

I would like to point out that I am at a natural disadvantage with this whole cooking lark. I reckon it`s pure genetics....down my mother`s side. Most kids earn pocket money from doing weekly chores. As a child, me too, only the real dosh was to be earnt from my father`s bribes. My Mum is one smart lady but, putting it nicely, cooking wasn`t her forte at that time. Many an evening, we`d sit, my brother, sister, father and I. At the table. Some charred offering laid before us. Mum in the kitchen. My father used to have to go in and gently stop her from banging her brains out on the newly installed, latest hi tech cooking machine."Now listen,kids" he`d whisper during one of Mum`s head banging fits," Your Mum tried really hard so let`s try really hard to enjoy this," as my brother sawing away at something unrecognisable, successfully cut through, making contact with the plate, sending  a piece of something black zooming mere inches past his ear, "And if you make it look good,I`ll give you extra pocket money." This caught our attention. "How much?" sneered my wee sister. "An extra fifty pence" swung Dad. " Fifty measly pence for a theatrical performance that would leave Laurence Olivier standing?"I scoffed. "Okay...okay" Dad hushed," You lot drive a hard bargain. Seventy pence and that`s my final offer!" A show of wee hands high five over the table just as Mum made her appearance. "I am sorry,kids," she apologised, face creased up in culinary agony," I think I made a mess of tonight`s dinner." Only to be met with incredulous cries of "What?....This?...This food is gorgeous,Mum!....What are you going on about?"  I think we got off a lot lighter than Dad. Being kids, we were a lot more resilient. After a while, we perfected the IT DIP technique. In Trousers Dump In Toilet. 

I cling to hope. My Mum is a great cook these days. Maybe it`s a mellowing with age thing.

"What`s that on the floor?" shouts hubby pointing at one of my `Volcano Cookies lying redundantly on the kitchen floor," Has the cat gone and pooed? Look, he has! There`s a bit of undigested cat biscuit in there!"  I sigh and reach for a wine glass.