Her Say: Why my gourmet life is just toast

If I'm entirely honest the gap in my kitchen where a cooker, a microwave or some other gourmet appliance ought to be, is about a rather more fundamental absence in my life.

Some years ago, one of my best friends moved to rural France. She bought a farmhouse in need of renovation and set about turning it, and her life, into an idyll. She would know she had succeeded, she said, the day she cracked eggs collected from her own hens, snipped herbs grown in her own garden and made herself a perfect Omelette aux Fines Herbes.

She doesn't even like Omelette aux Fines Herbes.

Five years on, she has yet to make one but the fantasy lingers, a sort of culinary code for her ideal life.

This popped into my head the other day as I was working through the stages required to make Basque Chicken - a recipe she gave me.

You soften garlic and onion, brown the chicken pieces (thighs, legs, wings ... skin on), then set them aside and cook chorizo, pepper, orange and saffron in the pan still sticky with chicken fat. Cover it with stock, put the chicken back along with rice and a scattering of olives and let it all cook slowly on the hob or in the oven. An hour or so later and voilà.

Or, if you're in my kitchen, an hour or so later and ... rien. Because Basque Chicken is my Omelette aux Fines Herbes.

It is the pinnacle of a culinary repertoire that grows by the day - each dish as untested and uncooked as the last.

You see I don't actually own a cooker. I got very close to owning one last week. I drifted into the appliance section of LuLu then drifted out again, pausing to buy a magazine at the checkout.

But two months after moving into a new apartment the gap intended for the cooker remains just that. My previous flat had a five-burner range cooker that remained unconnected to the gas, turning its solitary electric ring into the most ostentatiously mounted hotplate in Abu Dhabi.

Hooked on the recent series of MasterChef one of my friends told me she was inspired to do her own ingenuity test. Working only with the ingredients in her cupboard she rustled up an aubergine curry. I tried something similar and managed a cup of tea.

Friends have suggested I "just get a microwave". I bat this back on the grounds that it's not "proper cooking", imperiously ignoring the fact that it's a good deal closer to proper cooking than anything that's ever happened in my kitchen. There has been assembling (salads), shelling (pistachios), mixing (yogurt, cereal, drinks) and slicing (limes, lemon, ginger). But heat has never been imparted into anything that cannot be slotted into a toaster or poured into a kettle.

The other day I caught myself eyeing that kettle, wondering if I could boil an egg in it.

Still my notion of myself as a cook remains unassailed. This weekend I'm actually attending a cooking masterclass. Seriously. Untroubled by reality my confidence borders on the delusional.

If I'm entirely honest the gap in my kitchen is about a rather more fundamental absence in my life. As is my reluctance to fill it with anything other than my ideal. Why accept a reality that falls short of the dream? So I'll fill it when I'm ready, not a moment sooner, and I will make "my" Basque Chicken. And those unfortunate enough to be invited to share it will actually have to eat it.

Laura Collins is a senior writer at The National. Although from Scotland, she prefers designer heels to deep-fried Mars bars. Contact her at [e-mail]