Another

Rocket & Squash is a journal of food related experiences that I think are worth sharing. It covers the restaurants I go to, the meals I cook, and the food themed books, reviews, blogs and TV programmes that grab my attention.

I started the blog in May 2010 for a whole host of reasons, though I don’t really remember now what most of those were.

Perhaps it was to motivate me to tick off the restaurants on my ever-growing list of places to go, and to regularly cook new things. It might also have been because I thought that writing a blog would provide me with a creative outlet; an escape from my job as a City lawyer based around the things I liked doing the most.

Whatever the reasons, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

In December 2011 I decided to leave that well paid job as I finally realised that I wanted at least to try and earn a living in the food industry. I’m yet to work out exactly how I’ll do that. But in the meantime, I am on a 6 month ‘fast track’ professional chef course at Westminster Kingsway college and occasionally do stints in restaurant kitchens. If you are interested, you can see pictures of what I cook each day by following me on Twitter and Instagram (@rocketandsquash). I also document the course on the Jamie Oliver website: www.jamieoliver.com/bloggers.

Rocket and Squash will continue to evolve over time – no doubt it will chart or at least reflect my descent from the comfort of salaried lawyer, to enthusiastic chef student and wannabe food writer, to abject failure, poverty and then the inevitable creep back to my former profession.

If something I have written interests, pleases or enrages you, do add a comment to the relevant post. If you would like to contact me more generally, please feel free to send me an email (editor@rocketandsquash.com).

For what it’s worth, my name is Edward Smith. At the time of writing I am 30.333 years old, have most of my hair, and have recently developed an alarming addiction to flat whites and dark chocolate.

London, March 2012

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