thank you, Ikea

That rustling noise is me turning over a new leaf. Yes, again.

I am going to cook more and I start tonight. Ikea is partly the reason, the other being that autumn feeling of plenty - of harvest, pumpkins, deep stews and sticky meat that creeps through me like sap rising, to show it is autumn. Another wave of my cooking mojo returning.

In January I decided to cook a good deal from my book of Persian food* and, as with all resolutions, I tell someone so that I can't forget, or back out. Ten months later I haven't so much as opened the book and am vexed to my very soul about this. I really wanted to discover how to use some new ingredients and find some canny little recipe that just does in that sad, hungry, post-work moment. I also really wanted to use some of the fantastic cook books that I read as novels - on the bus, before bed - but never cook from.

What has Ikea to do with it? I only needed one bookcase of specific proportions, but knew it would be a gruelling evening as any trip to Ikea ends in hating oneself and everyone in sight. I saw a picture of the famous meatballs and, with jollity, decided to pre-empt the horror and head straight to the cafe. To try the meatballs! They looked awful but at least I will have tried them and be able to criticise them 'from the heart' as they say on Master Chef. There was one poor man serving a queue of about 500, the meatballs were counted onto your plate, potatoes added, and then you are given the option of 'berries and gravy': the former is jam, the latter a strange yellow liquid. If I could have found a fork I would have been happier. Or a table to sit at. Plus, it was no cheaper than an Itsu duck soup. Let's draw a veil over the rest: sadly, I never discerned what was in the yellow gravy.

Generic Ikea horror ensued: after 15 minutes I was bedazzled by choice and hadn't even got past stroking sofa covers, and admiring incidental vases. The hour mark saw me in a pretend child's bedroom gazing at an ugly lampshade. Another 10 minutes and I was in tears of indecision about which of the 47 bookcases I really wanted, and in which colour. The mist only really cleared as, Billy bookcase paid for and too heavy for me to lift, I realised the delivery service would be twice the price of the goods. So I hand-picked the most angry taxi driver to get me home. Of course, if I hadn't had the meatballs I would have had the right cash to pay him... and when I realised I was missing a crucial screw, I blamed the meatballs all over again.

My room is a pile of boxes and half-built shelving, which will have to stay like that for the next ten days (or-Royal-Mail-so) until the screw arrives in the post. The best I can make of the situation is to use this as an excuse to ignore my room - which still needs unpacking - and any chores therein, and spend my evenings in the kitchen instead. I also need to override the food-memory of those meatballs: and so, I cook.

The nursery slopes for a tired Monday night: red Thai curry. My love of it never really went away and I had a beautiful bit of cabbage left to use up. My main change is being less afraid of the nam pla, which I really disliked at first, and being much less scared of making it spicy. I now also have leftovers for lunch for a couple of days, and a warm glow that might just be smugness.

For the past hour I have been at the kitchen table reading Nigel Slater's 'The kitchen diaries' and my Persian cook book. Bliss. I am also writing a list of my fantasy-best coffee morning cakes, in anticipation of getting some cake-lovers around the table on a Saturday morning. I'm so excited I have even started choosing which coffee to get from Monmouth. Is it too much to match coffee to the cake?

I've written three lists already, am planning a family meal I won't have to do until 2010, and my head is half-way to having cooked everything. If only I could get up tomorrow and head straight to the butchers! Some days work really gets in the way of living.





*For bibliophiles out there: 'The legendary cuisine of Persia' by Margaret Shaida, Grub Street 2006, and first published by Lieuse Publications 1992 for those, like me, who find such things interesting. Purchased with a token given to me by a librarian committee I sat on until last year. I like to remember that as I gaze on the 'jewelled rice' illustration.

'The kitchen diaries' by Nigel Slater, Fourth estate (an imprint of HarperCollins), 2005