In March I got excited by and involved in promoting the Big Lunch, but not quite as involved as art student Stephanie above, who is wearing a cabbage as a hat.

And went to a very strange party populated by green people, lions  and long pepper at the Lord of Bath’s house.

I also followed a trail of flowers and cryptic clues to The Sea Flower, an ultra-secret Dalston supper club at the home of marvellous mixologist Grant. He ran it for three consecutive nights each week, each time featuring a different cuisine. This week was a vegetarian Indian feast, which had been cooked by an Indian family and then trolleyed across London on the overground.

The room had been transformed into an Indian tent; the walls and ceiling were hung with silk and we sat like sultans on piles of cushions at low, white tables, palm trees sprouting from the centre of each one.

I spent much of the night discussing life-changing plans with my friend Tam, some international photography students and a large tiger.

Among the dishes served were bowls of crispy, yoghurty, fresh, spicy goodness, which were passed around the table. The meal was finished off with little parcels of paan, as well as hookahs and apple tobacco. Wine was shared and the most delicious cocktails were mixed. Each person donated what they thought the meal was worth into a large music box, complete with twirling ballerina.

I came home from work on Tuesday 31st March with the sinking realisation that not only did I not want to have dinner the next day with seventeen lawyers, but that I never wanted to speak to another lawyer ever again. (That was, of course, an exaggeration. I’ve spoken to lawyers since – many of the more interesting ones have been to Rambling Restaurant and I have some lovely lawyer friends! The ones I was primarily fed up with were, for example, those that insisted on holding conference calls in the car on the way to their best friend’s funeral or those that revelled in their success in evicting small tribes from rainforests and acting for large retailers in child labour cases…)

April 1st was not only April Fools day but the day of the G20 London Summit. There were protests scheduled at Bank, where I was due to have dinner, and I was having visions of being suited and booted in a restaurant with a fat cat clientele and suitably patriarchal name, coming face-to-face with surprised acquantainces protesting outside the window. It wasn’t just that: it’s incredibly frustating being presented with a plate of beautifully cooked food, but having to battle with pen, notebook and some sort of constructive legal conversation while your dish goes cold and sad before your very eyes. What a waste!

So I spent the night talking with my sister, flatmate and oldest friend (all three legends) and drew up a pros and cons list for quitting my job. The cons list was pretty short and mainly consisted of variations on the theme of “it’s a bad idea to quit a good job during a recession”. But when is a good time to quit? Five and half years of desk jobbing was enough. There were many many items on the pros side and the list just keeps on growing.

I began 2009 with an incredible pot luck feast at mine, where friends shucked oysters, cooked slow-roast pork, brought delicious salads and baked melting chocolate fondants. I served up vanilla icecream and raspberry sorbet and then spent much of the month being ridiculously pleased by my new ice-cream maker. My friend Jess went back to live in the bountiful fish paradise that is New Zealand. I was suitably saddened by her departure and blogged rather uninspiringly about hairy vegetables. On the first day back at work I had an appraisal, which went something like this:

Boss: So, how are you getting on? Are you happy with your job. It all seems to be going rather well doesn’t it?

Me: [too hungover and infused with January blues to lie, and having been there for three and a half years without a squeak of discontentment] Actually, I’m not happy. I feel a bit uninspired by it all.

Boss: [looking rather shocked] Oh! Oh dear. Um, well, what can we do to rectify that…

Me: [hopefully] Maybe I could be here less…

So, I began my heavenly four-day week. Which, even though it meant squishing rather more than four days work into four days and several editorial all-nighters, was just great. It gave me a chance to work on my blog and just have a lot more fun.

FEBRUARY

I went surfing in Fuertaventura, a strange place full of moonscapes and OAP nudists. Surfing was something I learnt how to do in 2008. 2009 saw me becoming increasingly bad at and cross with it. I discovered that surfing in freezing cold wind over craggy rocks is not as fun as surfing in the sun on a perfect beach, even if it does look like vanilla icecream.

February was also the month of snow-ball fights and Lebanese food in west London, cooking over an open fire in Wiltshire and perfect pizza at Al Parco by Parliament Hill.

I also went to Bompas & Parr’s scratch ‘n sniff screening of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover. I’d become a massive fan of their innovative food design a couple of months before, when they’d sent me a recipe for glow-in-the-dark gin and tonic jelly that made all my friends fall down drunk at Christmas dinner.

I managed to bag a job as Camden Editor for YourLocal London website, which took me out and about, chatting to local businesses, reviewing restaurants, bands, plays, searching for lost pets and exploring Camden’s pop-up shops, wildlife and vineyards… Suddenly that four-day week was more like a six-day week, but a lot more interesting.

It was also in February that I went to Horton Jupiter’s Secret Ingredient and Ms Marmite Lover’s Underground Restaurant and was truly bitten by the idea of cooking for strangers…