'It's not worth cooking for one'

After a breakfast of a 'Duchy original' lemon chocolate truffle and some sesame grissini sticks - eaten with one hand, whilst the other applied mascara - I ruminated on food habits all the way to work.

Formerly, I was a breakfast devotee. Not a faddist, but it was as essential as going to bed in the evening and I would never consider skipping it. Moreover, it was always a good breakfast: a whole phase of creative porridge making, that blissful time I lived in Cardiff (not because of Cardiff, you understand -!) and discovered 'cold porridge' in a health food book - later re-invented as 'pukkola' by Jamie Oliver. My favourite variation was with roasted slithered almonds, fresh peach and yoghurt or cream on top. Weekend breakfasts, naturally, are a completely different feast.

My other firm belief was that I should always cook proper food, even though I mostly cooked just for myself. As I student I made stews, soups, bread, delicate chicken and pearl barley broth - always there was something good. Living by myself years later I would roast a whole lemony chicken for one - already planning the 5 other meals to squeeze from the carcass. I baked soft loaf-cakes and zesty muffins to glut on, then the rest went in the freezer so each day I could take something good to work.

But now I seem to have turned into one of *those* people. You know, they miss meals if there is no one to eat with, know the best dish on the take away menu and can't think beyond pasta. I haven't gone quite so far as to say, as my grandmother before me did, 'It's not worth cooking for one': it is the very reason I would cook for myself, and just thinking of it makes me turn to the stove!

On Tuesday the cupboard was bare. I didn't even have the ingredients of pancakes, and was so low on energy and enthusiasm that going to the shop for milk wasn't an option. Instead I gently revived my spirits with a leek and courgette omelette. I added shavings of Pecorino before folding it in half, waiting until it was perfectly soft - but not runny - inside before sliding it onto a plate. Necessity being the mother of invention (no bread or easy-cook carbs in the house) I heated half a tin of butter beans, made some garlic oil, then mashed the drained beans into the oil. Hot garlicky butter bean mash.

It was the best thing to happen that day.