It was called ‘The Kitchen Revolution’ and it cost £17 with free postage from Amazon.

I bought it because I had recently been teaching myself how to cook. Up until about 6 months ago the best I could manage was a tomato sauce to make with pasta. I never ate badly; I’ve not had a microwave meal in years, but I didn’t like red meats, at all, nor any kind of sea food apart from canned tuna. At about 3 months ago I was using ‘Cooking Guide’ on my Nintendo DS to make a few meals but this only happened about once a week. I learned the basics, like how to chop up an onion finely and to make stock from scratch, and to cook a joint or a steak. I enjoyed it, I really enjoyed cooking and eating what I had made. That should set the level of expertise I was at at that point.

I went out to Leeds about a month ago with my boyfriend, Matt, and I spotted ‘The Kitchen Revolution’ in Waterstones. I was a bit skint then so I didn’t buy it, but I was interested. So I ordered it over the internet instead.

I’ve been using the book for two whole weeks now, and we’ve just bought a week’s worth of shopping for the third week. I’ve never ate such good food constantly before. Next comes my review of the book, an introduction about me then hopefully frequent updates on what I’ve made day to day, and what I think.