Starting an anonymous food blog.

My wife and I love watching Masterchef. We can't afford to eat out as much as we'd like, and so we try to improve our own cooking in order to eat well at home. 

We learn a lot about cooking from the instruction of world class chefs instructing the contestants; whether it be the crazy-posed-chaotic modern-art-posing-as-fine-dining of Massimo Bottura, or the Rolls-Royce-engine-precision pinpoint placement of tiny dots of  Olivier Limousin.

If such diversity inspires one to prepare food that looks amazing, and is perfectly constructed, the round that I love most in Masterchef is when the critics rip the food apart, either leaving it in disgust on the plate, or scraping every off it last morsel, complaining only that the portion could have been larger.

They like a plate that looks good, but insist that the looks of a plate are a promise: if the promise is broken, and great looking food proves distinctly average, then the promise is broken. 

I want to learn not only to cook great food, but to appreciate great food; this blog is largely for my own benefit to force me to think, enjoy appreciate and reflect, rather than just to gobble and go. 

Too many food critics are immediately recognisable. Ratatouille would have been a very different film if Anton Ego had been an anonymous critic. OK, the plot wouldn't have worked, but he would have received a more accurate depiction of what Gusteau's had truly become.

So, I never hope to be a Jay Rayner, Charles Campion, Kate Spicer or William Sitwell. But if my reviews are less refined than theirs, my experience might be more typical of others who might enjoy (or hate!) the restaurant without being recognised as a critic.

I intend to review every time I eat out, unless I'm returning to a restaurant. This means that you'll get reviews that are not all "fine dining". OK, I'll not review McDonalds, or KFC, but pretty much everything else!