Dear LPG,

I want to talk to all the pensioners who can also be found in the category of people who still spend time in the kitchen.  I found that working left little time for much of a social life when I was younger but, now that my time is my own, I like to cook and also to entertain, and after all my years of cooking for my family you would think that I would know everything there is to know about this task.

I have always preferred to cook ‘real food’ as opposed to putting something instant into the oven, and cutting vegetables is the action that causes my hands the most anguish. To my mind if there is a lot of cutting to do the muscles in my fingers get really tired, not to mention the many nicks and cuts that they have suffered over the years. The saddest thing is that, after all the practice I have had, my fingers still often tell the story. 

As an avid watcher of cooking on TV, I have studied my television screen as I have watched Gordon Ramsay do it, not to mention Ainsley Harriot, Anthony Worrall Thompson, Jamie Oliver and so many more.    When they present their television cooking programmes they usually chat to the camera and do it simultaneously without ever looking down!  Perhaps the fact that they all make it seem so easy is the reason that my fingers suffer so when I try to emulate their technique.  I have developed what I feel to be a personal knack for this aspect of the preparation which is demanded in the kitchen, however my fingernails, and sometimes even my fingers, pay the penalty when I miss with a sharp knife, and the thumbnail which is holding whatever I am trying to dice so often pays the price.  I have also picked up the habit of sometimes doing it without the aid of a chopping board.

I found myself Googling this morning and I came across a web page or two that every culinary-focused, nail-conscious person should read, and that I plan to put into practice and, for those like-minded souls that enjoy the fruits of their own cooking prowess each day, I thought the links below might offer a lesson or two that can be learned no matter how skilled the other aspects of one’s cooking ability.

BC, Lewisham.

BC offers just four of the many links and videos that can be found on the subject of safe knife skills…

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