Painting and cooking have quite a lot in common – you put in all the right ingredients and something good happens. If you don’t follow your own way/path / star whatever you like to call it, things go wrong.  I have a few events coming up for which I have to provide cakes rather than paintings – I spent yesterday afternoon making a cake (new recipe). The cookery writer assured her readers that the result would be delicious – I kind of felt some misgivings about this but as I had a tin of black treacle lurking at the back of my cupboard ( one of the required ingredients) I went ahead. Result was not good – in fact it was disgusting. So today I have reverted to Delia Smith’s brilliant recipe for a fruit cake from her book  Vegetarian Cooking and I know it will be good.

Then I finished a couple of my own recipes for a painting, so can only blame myself if they don’t work! I’ve kept the empty treacle tin and I’ll put it in my next picture.