Top Ten Reasons I Shall Never Have a Cooking Show

1. My kitchen is a tiny, ill-lit mess at the moment, and often.  Silverfish can die in my kitchen.  That's a bad thing.
2. I have no idea what I'm making until it's made.  If something I am making goes horribly awry, I add either ginger and lemongrass or chocolate, depending on the dish.  Sometimes all of the above.  Sometimes it works, more often not.  I have thrown out dishes that tried to climb back onto the counter after.
3.  I'm a bubblehead.  I microwave tin cans, forget to take cookie sheets from the oven before I preheat and then forget to put on oven mitts when I do remember to take them out, resulting in epic cursing and my "pain dance", which the children find Hilarious.
4.  I can make creme brullee beautifully from the recipe in my head, (how to you do the accenty thing on a keyboard, anyway?) but have been thwarted by brownies every single time save one, whereupon I was making them for a child's birtday cake but was so thrilled with them I ate them all, by the light of the moon, howling and smearing myself with chocolately rapture.
5.  I cannot afford the ingredients I want to use.  Sure, I live in the big city now and finally have access to kaffir lime leaves, fresh lemongrass, foie gras and sea asparagus, but holy crap does it add up fast.  Also, my pots are generally cheap and horrid for things like "blackening", "sauteeing" and "scalding". (Again, the accents, anyone?)
6. I am a horrible food photographer.

 You wanna make this dish now? This slimy, slippery, alarmingly flesh-coloured monstrosity? I doubt it.  FYI, it's my super awesome Thai chicken soup that garners rave reviews from all who touch it, yet alas, I only know how to use the "auto" setting on my camera despite many generous lessons from friends.
6. It would be very difficult to appear cleanly, orderly and organized on camera whilst battling children, telemarketers, my nervous twitch, and grabby hubbys.
7.  I have been known to throw together some pretty stellar 6 course meals, the menu planned months in advance, prep started a minimum of 48 hours prior.  When you add pressure, such as my husband's boss, friends I'm dying to impress, or intergalactic diplomats, it all goes so, so wrong.  Things I have made a thousand times before just flop, or catch fire, or -most often- turn inexplicably and offensively brown.
8.  I drink when I cook.  Like, a lot.  The first 3 courses are usually much better than the last 4.  I now try to end the meal with pre-prepped courses, but I have occasionally failed in that as well, such as the flambe incident of 2004.  Oh, and the bbq incident of 2006.  Oh, and the... well, you get the idea.
9. I don't really follow directions well, so recipes are kind of my mortal enemy.  I'll adjust this, omit that... and then get really, really pissy when it all (surprisingly) turns to shit.  (What do you mean it meant it when it said add an egg???)
10.  I suck at food allergies.  My neighbours son who is super allergic to tree nuts almost got a taste of my butter chicken, my vegetarian friends have all had chicken broth cubes in their meals.  (You're telling me there's actual chicken in those?  I'm not buying it.  Stop being so delicate.)

I'm adding an 11 for the hell of it... I would be so, so fat if I made something good every day.        So fat.
Let's finish off with another horrible food porn (like the stuff you get in a back alley in Japan.. not the food, the porn.).

                                                            Oh yeah.. that's the stuff.