No, not converted from preferring one console over another. I'm talking about food. After being a bit concerned over my naivety when it comes to cooking, my girlfriend got me a cooking book for Christmas by Jamie Oliver. Now granted, I've been given cook books before. When I moved out of home a couple of people bought me cook books knowing that I might need help in that department, but they all seemed to lack accessability. They spoke about ingredients like you should know what they were, and I had no idea, or how to prepare them if that was expected of you, so my cooking life has been pretty plain for the most part; heating stuff in microwaves out of tins, frozen meals, basic stir fry and pasta (with meat sauce out of a tin).

But this book made it all pretty easy to follow. So I decided I needed to make something. The first page my girlfriend opened to was some roasted white fish wrapped in smoked bacon, with a side of lemon mayonnaise and asparagus. Second choice was rib of beef with a side of rosemary and garlic roast potatoes, seeing as I don't recall having a fishmonger at my local shopping centre and don't think the supermarkets there carry fish. So on Sunday I go to pick up the ingredients and forgot that the butcher won't be open. So I settled on some T-bone steak from the supermarket. Megan was going to bring some rosemary from her house, but she forgot. So she looks outside and it turns out I have rosemary a bush in my backyard. Who knew?

So in the end we had cubed roasted potatoes, cooked in rosemary, lemon zest and juice, and garlic. The T-bone steaks were marinated in the leftovers; it was supposed to sit for an hour but we already had the potatoes on and somewhere to be, so we couldn't wait. Chucked them in the frying pan, seasoned with freshly ground pepper and sea salt, flipped them over after a few minutes and did the same. After a few more minutes, took them off the stovetop and chucked them in the oven with the potatoes, taking it out every few minutes to baste them. Once finished, drizzled the steak with the leftover marinade and some extra virgin olive oil mixed with ground pepper.

And it was quite awesome. I was able to pick at what I could have done better, but given that it tasted so awesome I guess that means I have been living in blandtown for too long. The lemon really set off the meat. Usually when it comes to meat, I just chuck it in the frying pan with a little oil. I probably drizzled a little too much of the extra virgin olive oil on afterwards. I also don't have a mortar and pestle and improvised, so the potatoes probably would have had a stronger flavour if I'd been able to crush them correctly (but damn the crunchy texture was awesome). As I write this I am eating some calarami and salt and pepper squid that is cooked in the oven from frozen. They are tasty. But the vegetables that I've also cooked from frozen? Almost no taste. Now I have to decide whether to just throw them out or see if I can dress them up somehow. I don't think I want to eat them again as they are.

So why haven't I really cooked before? There are a few factors, that I'm sure some of you can relate to. Time is a factor. I often get home late so I don't want to have to prepare something. As that time is usually also invested in making meals just for myself, I don't see that it is worth the effort. But the above meal didn't take that long to make. It was probably about half hour from starting preparation to ready to eat. Though needing to do extra dishes because you prepare individual items of food can also be annoying. Then there is cost. I've always seen preparing full meals as more expensive. I think that may be both true and untrue, depending on what you make. The bill to get started on this meal was almost $40, but that included a bunch of ingredients that I only needed to use a small portion of and can go towards future meals (olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, bag of potatoes, sleeve of garlic, salt and pepper including grinders which were a bit more expensive). So if I keep preparing these sorts of meals it should start averaging out as I obtain stocks of general ingredients.

Will this be a fad and I only make a couple of meals for Megan to please her before I give up? Possibly... but I think I might be on to something here.

In gaming news, I've still been playing Burnout Paradise. It's taking a while to get my Elite licence. For those that haven't played it, each time you get a licence (by completing enough events) the city gets 'cleared' and you can complete the same events to go towards your next licence, with more events being required for each incremental licence upgrade. Once you get your Burnout licence, the city clears and you have to complete EVERY event to get your Elite licence... which is only about 115 events. I'm down to about 75 to go after a few play sessions, so this is going to take a while. If anyone wants to do challenges or compare road times/showtime, let me know. I'm playing the PS3 version. Haven't played much World of Goo, tried one of the stages while I had a spare moment but didn't complete it, I think I know what to do now though.

Also watched Avatar, and it was amazing. At first the 3D was a bit distracting, but after the halfway point I didn't really notice it and was immersed in the incredibly envisioned world. Highly recommended. Is the movie meant to be an analogy for us destroying our world? I don't know. Still incredible though.

Final Tip : For anyone out there who wants their significant other or anyone else they know to learn how to cook, the first step is to stop ridiculing them about what they don't know. This is probably the biggest factor in someone not wanting to learn how to cook, because they feel that anytime they own up to not knowing something, they are going to feel stupid for it. I told Megan this and she became supportive, and she was incredibly proud of me for making her an awesome meal.