After 15 years, in three different corners of the country, I am now 3 days away from finishing my education. Give or take, that’s 3,750 days of schooling, approximately 22,500 different lessons (can this be right?), 7,500 school dinners (only one of which I can actually recall ralphing, though I’m sure there were more), and a few pieces of paper with various letters on them denoting generally underwhelming grades. And I still feel pretty ignorant. This might be because I was more interested in playing cricket or going to the pub than studying, or that I was so easily seduced by the work-shy notion that grades were meaningless, or because I am prattling on about poor work ethic when I ought to be revising for two exams tomorrow – I’m not really sure which.<\/p>\n
Whatever the reason, without wanting to drift too close to cliche (though I fear that is inevitable), you never really stop learning. I learned a great deal at cookery school, but nothing compared to what I have picked up since then. Every split custard or mayonnaise, every loaf of over-risen bread, every poorly-executed sorbet, every piece of overcooked fish – they have all taught me something. Life is, after all, one big lesson, man, and the world is one big mutha-effin kitchen.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for me, at least as far as Italian grammar goes, I never quite started learning, so the last few weeks have been a semi-frantic rush to try and get through tomorrow without humiliating myself too much, hence lack of postage. The nice thing about working hard is that you feel you can treat yourself at the end of the day – nothing fancy, but it’s lovely to be able to put the books to one side for an hour or two and get cooking. What follow are a couple of the things we’ve eaten lately.<\/p>\n
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