The beginning. A very good place to start. I begin this blog at a very stressful and transient part of my life as I sit on the precipice of buying my first property. This is all very scary and exciting at the same time, but right now it feels much like a rite of passage.

This blog will document what foods and recipes will feature in the next few months and above and beyond educating readers on the best tricks of the trade that I have learnt over the years, it will serve as a guideline as to what one can cook when limited for time, tools and money. All of which I will experience in the next few months as I do not even have my own a set of cutlery, having moved here from London 2 years ago with nothing, I have rented my current flat fully furnished.

Nothing sends me into more of a spin than a non-functioning, equipment-challenged kitchen. The kitchen is where my creativity really comes out to play and a healing place for me when everything else seems to be chaos and maudlin. It is fair to say that I have learnt a lot, albeit self-taught. But cooking is an alchemy, is it not?

I have called this blog 'Le Oeuf' as this means 'the egg' in French (I thought the French version sounded slightly more fanciful than 'the egg' which sounds too much like 'the onion', I think). The egg is the most basic starting point in the kitchen, the very basic of what every cook must know and possibly the most versatile ingredient you will come across; if not the most difficult to get just right. Eggs make the basis of sauces such as hollandaise, béarnaise and mayonnaise. Eggs can be whipped into souffles, meringues and omelets. Eggs can be boiled, poached, fried, deviled, pickled and scrambled and are used in most baking recipes. Do you see where I am going with this?

So please, for the next few posts, bear with me whilst we get the perfect boiled, poached and scrambled egg just right. And while doing so, I will teach you how to give your egg dishes a bit of a twist and how to build on your own cooking alchemy.

Welcome to Le oeuf.