I Introduction<br > Wh~l makes a person relnctam to cook?<br > Lack of experience? Well， this is a cooking manual， nol a cookbook. Most<br > cookbooks are wriuen for people who already know hove to cook. We assume no<br > knowledge， and proceed from there.<br > The fact thai the;， find it boring， or they lack the time? We won t guarantee that<br > cooking will suddenly become fun after you have read this book， but we can hell ，<br > you organise 3，our time better so thai yon can spend more time out of the kitchen<br > than in it.<br > Lack of confidence? That s the hardest thing to remedy. Read on.<br > It can be infuriating to hear people wax lyrical about the joys of cooking when<br > the idea of preparing food for a dinner part ，， fills you v，，ith dread. 3"his dread has<br > largely developed because the goalposts have been moved. In this present culture<br > gastronomy has been pul on a pedestal. Knowing about and， better still， cooking<br > good food is the new middle-class social skill of the 1980s. Restaurant food has<br > improved enormously， people travel and eat abroad to a far greater extent and food<br > is photographed in glossy magazines as lovingly， and as expensively， as fashion<br > models. So， you may know exactly what you like to eat but haven t the first clue<br > about how to make it at home. Moreover， the quality of prepared food has improved<br > - quite elaborate ready-to-cook dishes such as Chicken Kiev now appear in<br > supermarket chiller cabinets- with the result that you may feel embarrassed to<br > present expectant guests with a meal that may not even match up to TV dinners.<br > With the huge choice of ingredients now available in many supermarkets，<br > cooking has become more， not less， complicated. It has become a high-stress，<br > high-anxiety activity for people who haven t yel acquired the knowledge， skill or<br > confidence to produce successful meals.<br > If you ve had failures， have slowly become disenchanted and are now totally<br > intimidated by cooking， perhaps it s time to give it one last chance before you<br > become completely resigned to being an absolute non-cook!<br > Consider this book as a tool to help you gain access at least to the outer sanctum<br >of the Fondle Kingdom. If you love cooking， as we do， it s sometimes hard to put<br >yourself in the shoes of a reluctant cook. But we ve tried to remember the problems<br >we used to have (and still do have! -Ed.) and have closely interrogated non-cooking<br >friends and colleagues about their innermost cooking fears.<br > As a manual， this book has a learning curve， to use the current jargon. It s<br >divided into three recipe sections， with extra information chapters stuck in between.<br >The first section is absolute basics: how to crack open an egg; how to make a cup of<br >tea; how to boil a potato. (Combine the three and vou ve made yourself a light<br >supper!) If that sounds a little too much like teaching grandmother to suck eggs， it s<br >meant to. If you re a grandmother who hasn t yet learned to suck an egg， you ll be<br >grateful for the instructions. By the time yuu can manage all the recipes in Section<br >One， confidence shuuld be starting to sprout. With luck， cooking won t seem too<br >bad after all，<br > If you re already an intermediate， you can progress straight to Section Two，<br >where the real meat (pardon the pun) of the book lies - the respectable， I-can-put-a-<br >d~ent-meal-on-the-tablc dishes， ltowcvcr， they all happen to be cxtremeh， easy，<br >~omelhing our mothers never told us. " : <br >6<br >