The Leaving Home Cookbook

I have written this blog for my two children, Rose and Fergie, so that when they leave home and strike out on their own, they can avoid the pitfalls faced by many, including myself as a twenty year old on Voluntary Services Overseas, in Northern Nigeria, when I suddenly realised I didn’t know how to shop, didn’t know how to cook, didn’t know what to do with raw meat, etc!

I wrote to my mother in desperation and asked her to send me some recipes and I got a recipe for pancakes back. I seem to remember eating a lot of tinned pilchards and drinking bottled Coca Cola, which was safer than drinking the local water, filtered or not, but I’ve never eaten a pilchard since and I did end up being repatriated through ill health!

Necessity makes one learn to cook in time and I have become a good homely cook, more than adequately skilled in feeding my family wholesome nutritious food that is enjoyed by friends as well. It is for this reason I have compiled recipes and meals, interspersed with advice on how to shop for and time meals. In doing so, I have made the assumption that, like my children, the reader has not yet had the opportunity to build up a large collection of utensils, gadgets or ingredients as one would expect in an established domestic kitchen and that he (or she) is on a small budget, has limited cooking skills but a good healthy appetite! "