Cooking calms me, rejuvenates me, and makes me happy. I have no idea why. A few weeks ago, my children were being loud, grumpy, disobedient, messy and irresponsible, and somehow I found time to sneak into the kitchen at 5pm or so, and make my own invention of Gooseberry curd. I had never made any kind of curd before, but as I cooked the gooseberry puree with butter, eggs and sugar, I stirred and stirred and stirred, and then all of a sudden, it got thick. And it was a beautiful, glossy, very pale green, delicious curd. In that instant, all was right with the world. The stress from the children was gone, and I could face my responsiblities again. That's what cooking does for me.

Tonight, I'm cooking something else new: blackcurrant jam. I've never tried making it before. I'm sitting here at 12:30am, waiting for the jam to reach 'setting point'. Not that I'm very good at knowing when that is reached. I'm looking for the 'wrinkly skin', but nothing very convincing has shown up yet. I used two parts blackcurrants to three parts sugar, plus a pint of water for every two pounds of blackcurrants.