I am not a sentimental person. All the same, I feel — along with the unavoidable nerves, poor form though it may be to admit to such — a cosily reassuring sense of the rightness of things as I ease myself into my new berth here.
Long before I became a food writer, or even had the merest inkling of such an improbable eventuality, the very first piece I had published in the national press was for the FT. At the time, I was working in publishing as an editorial assistant and moonlighting as a book reviewer for any periodical, academic supplement or literary magazine that would have me. The innocent optimism and brazen energy of youth drove me to cut out my fledgling reviews and send them (along with, in my defence, an apologetic cover note acknowledging their flaws) to proper, big-deal literary editors. And so it was that Anthony Curtis of the FT sent me a book to review. I can’t remember exactly what the book was — a Latin American novel from the school of magical realism, much in vogue at the time — but unfortunately I do remember that I actually described it as “oneiric and labyrinthine”. The shame will never leave me. A wiser person may have thought better than to mention this, but if we’re going to be spending time together here on a monthly basis, it’s best not to keep secrets.
