The First Dinner...

Now when I say I was stressed, I mean it, I was stressed. People who know me will know how stressed I get about things and how ridiculous and irrational I can be. It was fight or flight and I was flighting (bru), I mean I was fleeing, or wanting to flight, or flee or fly, anyways I wanted off, I wanted to jump off the boat and keep swimming till I hit Cape Town. I was ready to fling myself off the pasarelle and feed myself to the sharks, I didn't care. I was thinking of every possible way to get out of it, I considered falling down the stairs, mysteriously disappearing (which would have been very naughty), asphyxiating myself with cleaning products or chewing my own arm off so I couldn't cook but I eventually came to my senses, I had a little pep talk with myself and realised how insane I was being. So I knocked back a few shots of Corsica's finest fun juice (just testing, for the guests) and got on with it.

So for the first meal I thought I'd play it REALLY safe, there seemed no point in trying to make something fancy I'd never done before when I was SO flipping stressed out, so for the starter I made a potatoe and leek soup, a bit boring but I knew how to make it with my eyes closed, I could prepare it in advance and people have told me it tastes really good. As I was serving the soup I noticed loads of little brown specs in it, I had NO idea what they were, absolutely NOTHING brown went into the soup, and I hadn't burnt it. I looked down at the wooden spoon and noticed a piece of it was missing. Oh yes, a piece of the wooden spoon had broken off into the soup and I had liquidised it along with the rest of the ingredients. Oh FLIP, oh help, buggeration. I had no idea what to do, the guests were all sitting down waiting for their starter, so I tasted it (to see that they wouldn't choke and die), it seemed okay... and then... I did the unthinkable, I served it. Yeah, I actually served it, and everyone lived, which was a good thing (or wwwwwAS it??). I then served a really good quality, masterfully cooked (believe it) filet mignon and made a FULL recovery with my meringue baskets, filled with chantilly cream and topped with every berry under the sun, dusted with icing sugar and finished off with a sprig of mint (cos I'm fancy like that)... mmm yum. Madam Sour Face went so far as to say that she was a meringue "fanatic" and that it was the best she had ever tasted and could she please have the recipe... funny thing was, there WAS no recipe, I had no measuring scales or cups and I completely winged it... so I just made something up, wrote it down and gave it to her, I'm pretty sure she will NEVER ever have to make her own mernigue.

Here's a picture of Madam Sour Face, looking like she's just been baptised in lemon juice, what a cracker...

So I survived, I cooked my first formal 3 course meal and I survived, I didn't have to sacrifice any limbs, fall down any stairs nor did I have to become shark fodder, a succesful night, I would say...