Teen Times/Aoife MacArdle: In recent months my body has become one with the couch in the search for ultimate comfort.
I was glued to the box the other day when I came across yet another Jamie Oliver cooking programme.
Having never actually seen his work before but knowing my mother has a recipe book containing his supposedly foolproof guidelines, I decided to give Mr Oliver a go.
About halfway through the television programme I got that familiar prickling feeling at the back of my neck. It's the kind I imagine psychics get when they realise there's going to be a car crash a few feet away or mothers of young children get when they realise their little darling is going to vomit all over them.
My special feeling filled me with an insatiable desire to cook. To put this desire in context I should explain that my kitchen and I have a feistier relationship than most. About 60 per cent of the time we get on grand but the other 40 per cent, well, lets just say that I once put on a pot of potatoes to boil and 20 minutes later concluded the funny smell might have something to do with the fact that there was no water in the pot.
Another time my brother and I made brownies. In a slight error of judgment I substituted a baking tin for a baking tray and when the brownie mix expanded it hit the fan in our oven. I think you'll understand what I mean when I say it looked like another rather less appealing substance had hit the fan.
Then there was the baked potato saga, when one inexplicably exploded halfway through cooking. The explosion switched the oven off and left only a carcass of said potato sitting sadly on the rack. The rest of the spuds were fine for some strange reason - this is just another cooking mystery I have yet to solve.
There was also that other time, when I tried to make yellow soup with rice in it and the watery part of the soup evaporated off - to be located later as a puddle on the floor - and the rice just tasted of mint when the recipe had not called for mint and I had certainly not added it. I don't even eat mints.
Or that other time when I thought that cinnamon and cinnamon sticks were the same thing and smashed up half a stick and threw it in the mix for a cake. Cooking tip: When cinnamon sticks have been cooked they look like small pieces of tree bark and this repels people from eating the cake, however much you plead.
Never mind Can't Cook, Won't Cook; I am a "can't cook, do cook but probably shouldn't cook" kind of girl. I am the person who once said, and not too long ago, "you're actually supposed to pre-heat the oven? But I never do and everything I've made always turns out grand."
So I don't know how Jamie and myself are going to get on but I know for a fact that it will be interesting. And it's not all bad. I do happen to make a rather delicious Coca-Cola cake. Yes, as in the soft drink. Don't ask.
fe Mac Ardle (17) is a pupil at St Joseph's College, Lucan, Co Dublin
