Just like Betty Crocker. Or Jamie Oliver. Or the Iron Chef. Or whoever.

Lately I've been indulging in culinary experimentation. Last week the urge to cook something totally new took over my mind with a restlessness such that there was really no choice but to succumb.

So much so that on Wednesday I almost had to leave work early to rush home and make some Soba noodles with pakchoi and sesame. And then Thursday I was taken over by the sudden and irresistible urge to make couscous with lemon and peppers. Today it's little salmon and spinach filo parcels.

Where am I thinking up these dishes from? I have no idea. Don't even have a clue about the recipes until I actually start throwing vegetables into the frying pan, trying to affect an air of deliberate randomness.

But I'm loving this new ability to manifest my creativity and expressiveness through my cooking! It's fun. It helps make the house a home. It helps put the bread on the table. And most importantly, I have, in my loyal roommates, two willing, encouraging (and frankly flattering) subjects on whom to bestow the results.