This is perhaps not an admission I should make, but cookery books are pretty much my porn. Well, perhaps that’s not the most accurate description. When we were children, my sister would watch videos again and again and again. Watching Annie, The Care Bear Movie or The Sound of Music on a daily basis drove me nuts. I regularly call my housemate a geek because he’s lost count of how many times he has seen Star Wars (I think he owns about 8 copies of the first film in various formats).

 

I only realised recently that I do the same thing, but with cookery books. If you were to ask me if I had a recipe for Pumpkin Pie, I would know exactly which section of which book it was in, and there are a LOT of books. I banned myself from buying more, but I’m dying to get a decent Indian cookery book.

 

I was wondering why I do this. I mean, I love the thought of making all of this lovely food, and when I get round to it the results are always far better than my usual boring penne with tomato sauce. I rarely actually use them except for cakes though, I just like daydreaming over them. Then I realised – for me it occupies same space in my mental landscape that holds novels and films. I read them over and over again for the mindless, pleasant escapism. Which is one of my favourite ways of procrastinating.

 

I thought I was being a domestic goddess, but no. Doh! On the plus side, my obsession does mean that people at the retreats have a high likelihood of being fed something exciting.