These days, when I cook, I know what I'm doing. I'm not Heston Blumenthal or anything, but I can rustle up a nice stir fry, a Sunday roast, a risotto or - very occasionally - a spaghetti bolognese. I say occasionally because every time I make that dish for my wife, I cringe. She loves spaghetti, but because of an incident in my youth, I can't stand the stuff. I was a 19-year-old student when it happened. And I was experiencing a slight cash-flow problem. My cash wasn't flowing anywhere other than the student union and Burger King.
The object of my affection - let's call her Jenny - was from a well-off family. She was an attractive girl and, amazingly, she seemed interested in me. I knew she was used to the finer things in life because she actually had a car, which for the rest us impoverished students was like a golden chariot, even though it was actually a Ford Fiesta. We'd been friends for a while and I wanted to ask her to dinner. The problem was that I could barely afford lunch at the local fish and chip shop, let alone a romantic dinner for two.
I recalled that I had read in a women's magazine that there's nothing more impressive for a woman than a man with an apron on, fussing over his speciality dish and presenting it on an immaculately set table. My speciality dish at the time was chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle and a can of Tizer. I confided in my friend Dave, telling him who I was planning to cook for, and he kindly imparted his recipe for spaghetti bolognese.
At least I thought he was my friend. I plucked up the courage to ask Jenny and she said yes. When it came to the big day, my housemates grudgingly agreed to disappear for the evening and I prepared the table with a brand new nylon tablecloth bought from the local pound shop, still creased from the packaging. I put candles into two pop bottles and laid out the cutlery. Then I started cooking. She looked stunning when she arrived, and genuinely delighted to see the effort I'd made - until she tasted the dish.
Of course, I now realise that spaghetti bolognese shouldn't contain half a bottle of Tabasco sauce. I also realise that Dave, whose "recipe" I had innocently followed to the letter, had deliberately sabotaged my date. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't see much of either of them after that. I've no idea what they're doing now, but whenever I have to cook spaghetti bolognese I have an image of them both, frolicking in a field, laughing, with tomato sauce spattered all over their faces.
Like I said, I hate the stuff. As told to James Brennan
