Learning to cook: Mary Berry How to Cook

It is never too late to learn how to cook. I am a vivid example that there are always second chances for born-to-fail type of chefs. In the last 5 years, I started from the scratch and succeeded to bake my own bread and challes - without a recipe, lately - and to share cooking tips with experienced ladies. As in many other situations, the determination to succeed are fundamental in the success of the project.

Even though I can consider myself middle management level, there are still a lot of things that I don't know, mostly because I did the learning by myself or from books. 

Mary Berry is a brand name in the history of British cuisine. Educated at Cordon Bleu, she is a top English presenter and food writer but also considered one of the best dressed over 50s women in the relatively fashion sophisticated United Kingdom. 

How to cook is mostly a collection of basic recipes, accompanied by practical tips about the boiling time, the quantity of ingredients needed for a tasty meal as well as some descriptions of the practicalities of some of the tools that can help to cut correctly your veggies or your lemon. 

I learned a couple of cooking tips, that I am keen to share it:

- An egg should be left around 30 minutes out of the fridge before boiling.

- Before you make an omelet or your fried egg, be sure that the fat or oil in the pan is already boiling. It will also help to prevent the egg to get glued on the pan.  

- There are different boiling times for rice: 12-15 minutes for the parboiled long grain, 10-15 minutes for basmati and around 30 minutes for the normal rice.

- Before cooking, add some salt to the eggplant as it will help to eliminate the bitter taste.

- Wash the potatoes with a brush in order to properly clean the rests of earth and other impurities.

- When you want to cut fruits with core, try to first cut them circularly and at the end, separate the halves around the core. This goes as well for the avocado, that gave me a couple of headaches and hilarious moments when I first tempted to halve it. 

With so many new tips, I know that my life in the kitchen will be much easier than never before!