Bahrain Foodie Marie-Claire Honeywill explains how she got started in the kitchen and why she never gives up on a recipe.
It’s never really occurred to me before, since it’s always been such an intrinsic part of my everyday life, but It’s been brought to my attention a few times recently how intimidating the idea of cooking is for some people and that got me to thinking. It’s true, it can be intimidating but it needn’t be.
I’ve always been a big fan of food but my passion for cooking only really reared its head three years ago, after a conversation with a close friend in a moment of retrospection. I was lamenting the fact that, while I was quite happily (well mostly) going through the day-to-day of life, I didn’t really have anything I was passionate about or have a particular talent for. Said friend pointed out that I spent a lot of time reading about and watching shows to do with cooking and asked me why I didn’t concentrate more on that. And as simple as that, I had my Eureka moment.
My mother has always been an amazing cook so I picked up a few bits and pieces from her over the year, and, along with the inevitable lessons learned from years of doing my own cooking, I feel pretty confident I can work out most things culinary if and when the need or want arises. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my disasters in the kitchen. I do. Often.
A lot of cooking is trial and error and believe me when I say I have a lot of error! But then that’s how I knew my friend was right when they told me that cooking was my passion, because with most things that prove too much of a challenge, I’ll shrug them off and move onto something else.
When it comes to cooking though I won’t stop until I’ve gotten it right. I lost count of how many cheesecakes I made before I learned how to bake them without them cracking while they cooled and my first attempt at making something as simple as caramel took me almost two hours and five attempts until I finally got the sugar to stop crystalising. I’ll be honest, it occurred to me to give up after attempt number three but I can be stubborn sometimes and I was darned if I was going to let some sugar and a bit of water beat me so I turned to Google for help – the solution was as simple as two drops of lemon juice, in case you were wondering.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that cooking is actually quite simple when you know what you’re doing and when you don’t there’s always Google and YouTube… Oh and my “Bahrain Foodie” facebook page of course! And if all that isn’t enough, you can always tune into the AM to PM show on 96.5fm every Wednesday between 10 and 11am, where I talk to fellow foodie Dominic Miles about all things food.
Bon Appetit!
Check out more of Marie-Claire’s culinary wisdom at www.bahrainfoodie.com or on the Bahrain Foodie community page on Facebook.
