The Hungry Poet: My Life in Food - 'Burning a Frozen Pizza', 'Bacon Sandwiches'

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Burning a Frozen Pizza

The first night I had to cook for myself in London, I put a frozen pizza in the oven. Well, I thought it was the oven, but I’d actually turned on the grill. Needless to say, after about 20 minutes the kitchen absolutely stank of burnt pizza and the pizza was black on top and still frozen underneath. Suffice to say, since then, I have always been careful to choose the setting of the oven very carefully when heating up frozen processed foods. It wasn’t the best way of endearing myself to my new flatmates either but thankfully I came back from that.

George Foreman Grill – Bacon Sandwiches

While in my first year at university my mother bought me a George Foreman grill. Everybody had a George Foreman grill. The idea was simple: you plug it in, hit the ‘on’ switch, put your food on, close the lid down and it grills your food while draining away the fat, to make it healthier, supposedly. I used it for bacon sandwiches, which I suppose defeated the object of using it as a healthy eating device. I wish I hadn’t. While it did leave some nice grill marks on the bacon, it dried it out to within an inch of its life and cleaning the grooves in the grill was a pain in the groin. You stick to boxing, George, and I’ll stick to my frying pan.