Let's get started on the year, then

If I could be said to have any resolutions for the new year at all regarding this blog it would to be to try to keep it regularly updated with interesting recipes and snippets. Nearly two weeks in and nary a smidge of a speck of a smell of a post.



What I have been doing is reading other people's food blogs, almost obsessively, to see what makes them interesting, popular or useful. Frankly, in fact, to see where I'm going wrong. I find I'm only returning to a few of them time and again, and these are the bloggers who write very simply, with snippets about their lives and pets thrown in.

One place I do go nearly every day is Hannah's Country Kitchen. I don't actually go there for the cooking, as Hannah's style is replete with meat, eggs and cream, nothing for the vegan there at all. The entries are usually very short but she manages to find something to say every day, which makes clicking on her link a worthwhile exercise. Of course, to get readers to her blog she had a huge head start on most of us, as she was a finalist in Masterchef. Masterchef is one of the very few television programmes I make any effort to watch and although it's the most arrant tosh, just like all reality telly programmes, has some insights into cooks and cookery that are intriguing.

Would I go on Masterchef? I'd give that a considered yes. I'd rate my vegan cooking to stand up to any competition from the animal chompers but I suspect that the prejudice shown by meat eaters towards the veg*n diet would ultimately defeat me. Even the occasional vegetarian that slips through the selector's net seems to have a very hard time - no concessions are allowed so ethics have to be suspended in some tests and inventiveness stifled in others. The judges are actually pretty conventional when it comes to what they want to see on their plates with a sort of 'where's the meat' cliched reaction when faced with a vegetable based dish.

Mr. Stripey Cat and I have discussed having a veg*n only based competition but think that would be to remove veganism from the mainstream whereas our aim is to make it at least as popular as other cuisines. We'd like to create our own vegan restaurant and have it become as famous as the Fat Duck or Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. I'd have no trouble with the cheffy attitude either! And if that's not to be, then we'd like at least a bit more choice when we go out to eat, which means making other cooks and chefs aware and gaining their help.

The new series of Masterchef has just commenced and the first week's contestants weren't great as far as one can tell from the small screen. We wonder just how much of the selection process is driven by the exigencies of making good television and how much by the quality of the cooking, but we'll continue to watch because food is worth study.