First incursion into the food blogging world

Hello there, my yet-to-be-materialised potential readers! I feel a slight sense of regression to those frequent ocurrences during my childhood when I would talk/write/sing, etc to several imaginary friends conjured up by my my lonely self when in desperate need to compensate for my only child status (those out there who have also suffered and still suffer from the lack of brothers and sisters will understand exactly what I mean. Those who don't, just stop moaning about how awful your siblings were and trust me: even the nastiest of siblings is better than having nobody at all to gang up against your parents with even if that is their sole function in your life!).

To be perfectly accurate, this is my second incursion into the blogosphere; the first one was in Spanish (my mother tongue) and it never quite took off as I started it very late into my 11-month forced stint back home in Argentina and as the purpose of the blog was to vent my frustrations at being, as I called it, 'stuck in Buenos Aires' (the city where I grew up and that I left as soon as I could...more on that later), as soon as our leaving date approached I lost interest in continuing to have a rant about it.

There are several reasons why I have finally decided to blog, namely,

• Everybody else seems to be doing it (so why not me?);
• I love writing and I am generally too self-deprecating/lazy/intimidated to do any 'proper' writing;
• I am passionate on the verge of almost obsessively mad about food and as nobody I know in the 'real world' remotely shares my craziness, I found that there are other people out there, in the 'virtual' world who are as bonkers as me;
• A tad of self-indulgence, I suppose, and the illusion that someone, somewhere over the rainbow or round the corner will acknowledge my virtual existence and get some sort of enjoyment out of my postings;
• Last but not least, I am idle as hell given the fact that I am not allowed to work at the moment and I've got more time in my hands than sense and instead of being sucked into the world of the Jeremy Kyles and the Cash in the Attic watching numbers, I decided to pretend I've got something interesting to say.

As an Argentine living in Britain (I think you can pretty much insert most nationalities instead or Argy and it would still work...apart from, well, Americans (most of them, anyway) and maybe Germans (sorry if any of you happen to be one or the other and let me point out that I am more than willing to stand corrected on this one), I am generally appalled at the ghastly food culture (or lack of) that exists in the UK...Before anyone jumps for the jugular throwing names of chefs, tv programmes and Michelin-starred restaurants, let me explain what I mean by this: yes, there is great food available in the big cities; yes, the supermarkets sell ingredients from all over the world and there are plenty of cookery programmes and celebrity chefs inundating the airwaves. However, in my humble experience, for the vast majority of Brits, that is a bit like watching a sci-fi film. They enjoy it, they think it's great but it is so far-fetched that there is no way on Earth that they can see good food as something they could tackle as they believe that this would entail, God forbid!, getting off their arses to cook! And there is nothing that defines the British attitude to food than: Why bother? Their usual grub is, as the chaps from 'Goodness Gracious Me' would say, the blandest thing on the menu, a direct product of the prevalent mentality shared by many about food being 'functional' and 'filling the gap'. This clearly stems from the post-war rationing times where it was necessary to procure the cheapest, fattiest, easiest meals to make sure they could build up a reserve of fat to survive for the longest time possible until the next ration.

The irony is that the UK (at least pre-Gordon Brown and pre-credit crunch malarkey) has been one of the richest, most prosperous countries on earth for many years...However, if you ask most Brits about their spending, they would probably say that the first thing they economise on is food, choosing to eat sausages, beans and chips or ready-made frozen meals from Iceland and spend loads on booze, fags and other luxuries instead of investing in good food...It is a sad state of affairs indeed and that's why I've never seen in any other country (apart from America, again) so many programs trying to teach people what a vegetable looks like and how to cook the most basic dish without using a microwave or shoving ready-made dubious meals in the oven with no seasoning whatsoever apart from butter, margarine or ketchup!

Thankfully, things are slowly changing for the better but it is still a minority that shows an interest in good, healthy food is and who understand how inextricably linked it is to a happy, healthy life...I don't intend to get on a soap box but this does really get my goat BIG TIME (What do you mean you've already noticed??? No waaaayyyy...)

And as my fiancé repeats to me like a mantra:"You should do something about your passion for food" (euphemism, methinks, for 'stop torturing me with your obsession and channel it in some productive way, woman!') So here I am...

My name is Paula and Iam a foodie...Help!