[pig]

That if you get it right people are genuinely impressed by it. With this in mind I invited a lady friend around for a nice roast dinner (this was the french bird btw)

So I went out and bought some gammon, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onion, honey,mustard and gravy.

I prepared the gammon by washing it and then preparing a lovely honey and mustard sauce. This was pretty much 4 tea spoons of honey and 2 tea spoons of mustard and then mixed up, its a good consistency, its not too runny and not too thick. You pour the sauce of the joint and it sticks to it nicely, and half runs down the side of it. I then peeled the potatoes, carrots, parsnips and the onion.

Next I boiled the potatoes, carrots and parsnips. I bunged some oil in the oven and heated it up, once the veg was boiled i put them in the roasting tin with the gammon and put the boiling oil over the veg (to make it easier to roast) I kept about half of the potatoes and kept them in the pan and left them there.

Half an hour later she turned up with a bottle of wine and we chatted and had a drink. Now I was a bit nervous as normally when I cook a roast something somewhere will **** up, either the veg is undercooked or the meat is undercooked so it needs to stay in for longer, this is normally because I try and rush it when im cooking. With about 30 minutes left I glazed the meat again with the honey and mustard and checked the veg and meat was cooking ok.

The dinner was almost done so I made some mash potato, added some cheddar and mustard just to keep in with the gammon theme. With 5 minutes left finally I did some gravy and finally pulled it all out of the oven. I opened up another bottle of wine and brought the roasting tin with the meat and the veg to the table, along with the mash and gravy.

Her eyes were wide open and the site was nice as was the smell, but its the taste that counts and shes french so its double difficult to impress her. I tentaviely cut it and gave her the meat and veg etc. We ate it and she seemed impressed, she ate everything on her plate which is impressive for someone as thin as her and we then ate the cheescake she brought round.

After dinner finished the wine and had a few cigarettes, she then left but I got the kiss.

Anyway Im really into cooking and if I was to cook next time I think I would do homemade raviolli or maybe a nice fish dish like some fresh cod with cabbage and real ale.

The problem is I feel quite old. I like several genres of programs on tv but cooking problems are one of my favourite and the best has to be Saturday Kitchen on a sunday morning. Cooking is just one of those things which can be incredible simple but gives the wow factor. I also now love gardening, I think Im quite a practical guy and like doing things with my hands and seeing what the fruits of my labour are.

Anyway is anyone like me who enjoy cooking and gardening and is taking an increasing interest in these areas?