When I embarked upon this journey, I knew I would probably sustain a few more injuries than I had done in my advertising career. True, at times I suffered from chronic boredom, powerpoint induced migraines, and shattering ear pain from some of the utter crap spouted in meetings. Fortunately though, none of it drew blood.

Well, apart from the time i stabbed my leg with a biro under a meeting room table to keep myself awake while listening to the millionth marketing discussion about a modern woman's need for "pampering" and "me-time". It wasn't worth the pain or the trouser damage. I should have just caught some zzzzzzzzzzs.

Kitchens on the other hand are dangerous places. Heat=pain. Sharp things=pain. Hot sharp things = serious pain. Hot sharp things + salt + lemon juice + chilli powder = guantanamo interrogation.

On the many TV programmes where I have watched chefs using mandolins, they always warn you to keep your fingers away from the blade, and if possible use a guard. Now I see why. Yesterday evening I was invited by Steve Wallis to help him with a cookery demonstration he was doing for House and Garden and Poggenpohl and I willingly accepted. He had a great menu lined up and the first thing he asked me to do was mandolin some turnips to produce some wafer thin discs. No problem, but I was conscious there was no hand guard.

Do you ever suffer from that weird compulsion to do the exact opposite of what you're trying to do? Like when you're trying really hard not to blaspheme in front of your devoutly religious grandparents? The tourettes kicks in and by God does it become impossible to not take the Lord's name in vain. Or when you're wandering around the narrow aisles of a fine china shop and your elbows suddenly take on the proportions of a 747's wings. Or when faced with an impressive cleavage and a low-cut top, eye-to-eye contact becomes a struggle against gravity, no matter how loudly the voice in your head is telling you to NOT LOOK DOWN. Probably just a guy thing, that last one. I think there may be a concentration threshold above which things start going a bit out of control.

So as I sliced those turnips, and focused purely on keeping my fingers intact, there was only one possible outcome. This would be a short evening. Casualty was beckoning. The blipping theme tune was beginning to play in my head. Charlie Fairhead, nurses in uniform, possible cleavages, then arggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Jesus! Mary! Joseph! shocked grannies, and it was all over.

Thumb carpaccio. A coulis of blood. Thank you and good night.

I ended up spending more time in A&E than i did in the kitchen and was as much use to Steve as curdled hollandaise. On the plus side I had sustained my first kitchen injury, and the first of many I'm sure. In the right column of this blog I'm going to keep a record of injuries sustained in the course of duty - I think it's a little more interesting than cigarettes and calories, Bridget Jones.

Congrats to Steve on what apparently was a very successful night, and thanks to Meri for walking me to St Thomas Hospital!

A day with the Masterchefs

A few months ago I was put in contact with Steven Wallis who won the last series of Masterchef Goes Large and yesterday I met him for Dim Sum at the Royal China in Bayswater. We're both moving from the world of brands to the universe of food so it was great to hear how things have been going for him since winning the show. He's a really down-to-earth guy and is full of encouragement for what I'm trying to do and has even offered help if I need it along the way. It sounds like he's got loads of projects on the go and has just come back from a stint at Pierre Gagnaire in Paris. Hopefully I'll see more of Steven in the future...


Pages on Shaftsbury Avenue is my favorite catering supply shop so I dropped in to pick up a few bits I'm in need of. I always go in there aiming to buy a couple of things but end up leaving with bags of kit, even though I have no more space in the kitchen to store them! Yesterday I went in for a flan ring but left with a silicone baking sheet, stopwatch, loaf tin, and some measuring spoons. Pages is to me what Top Shop is to Emilie - I get this weird rush when I'm in there, wanting to buy new crockery, moulis, mandolins, and of course knives. Inevitably I use the stuff I buy on rare occasions, usually because I buy flan rings big enough for feeding 8 people and it's rare that we have that many over for dinner.

Later I met friends for dinner at Wahaca, the new Mexican "Street Food" restaurant in Covent Garden. Wahaca was recently launched by Thomasina Miers who was another previous winner of Masterchef. We had tried to get into the 140 seater restaurant on the Thursday of opening week only to be met by a 2 hour queue for a table - and that was at 7pm! This time we were there at 6.30pm and managed to secure ourselves a large table without any hassle.

During our trip to the Yucatan earlier this year, we had some fantastic street food away from the tourist drag in Playa del Carmen. No noisy macarena bands blowing their horns in my guacamole or offering "romantic" songs to my senora. Instead we binged on lovely tacos and quesadillas full of Mayan fire. We would stuff ourselves for about £10 and then roll back to the Hotel Basico to collapse . Seeing this kind of food on the Wahaca menu brought back some great memories so I was looking forward to seeing if London could really deliver authentic Mexican street food.

The food at Wahaca is simple and tasty and at about £30 each including a fair few drinks, it's pretty good value too (although still 6 times the price of the same food in Mexico!). It's been getting mixed reviews but I'd recommend it as a great place to line the stomach before a big night out on the town.