A Year In My Kitchen - the night before the first day.

I’ve been inspired. Not in the weepy, life-changing way, but by a good book and an honest friend.

The book I read for bookclub. The friend I usually try to ignore! The result: A Year in My Kitchen.

By the time I’d finished reading Julie & Julia by Julie Powell, I’d decided to follow in Julie’s footsteps and choose a cookbook and cook every recipe in it. But I stalled, got caught up in life and it took my friend Marcus, who suggested I need a distraction from the everyday – a hobby, so to speak – to resurface the cooking experiment. Finally it was my very own Julia, who as a member of bookclub had read Julie & Julia and knows my love of food and cooking, who gave me the final push I needed. And convinced me to write about it!

So here I am. Cookbook at the ready (COOK with Jamie), kitchen clean, shiny, tidy and prepped and my first blog post on the go.

I’m not setting out to change my life, or anyone else’s, I simply want to combine two things that I love – cooking and writing – and have some fun along the way. I’ve never blogged before, so that side of things will be a bit of trial and error. I’ll try to keep things as entertaining and as honest as possible. I’ve never cooked from a Jamie Oliver cookbook either, but I’m a big fan of his, so after much consideration and browsing my bookshelves, I’ve settled on COOK with Jamie. It’s got 164 recipes, so should be pretty easy to wrap it up in one year – fingers crossed.

I’m hoping my friends and family won’t object to being used as part of my experiment – I need them to be willing to eat!

So, it all starts tomorrow. Dad is coming over for dinner. I’m yet to decide exactly what I’ll cook, but have narrowed it down to something from the seafood section.

One last thing before I sign off on day one – big thanks to Jules for giving me the push I needed and allowing me to harass her all week, looking for reassurance and most importantly a name for this whole experiment. I am hugely grateful.

Xx