If you you like to cook for yourself, your family or and your friend, I am sure you take pride in the preparation of your food.
Little things, attention to detail can make all the difference between a competent meal and a really lovely meal prepared with love.
Many of the things you can do are indeed small as the expression 'attention to detail' implies.
For example, have you ever considered colour coordinating your fruit bowl or cutting the vegetables up like you often see in Chinese restaurants in the shape of animals or flowers.
It does look good, doesn't it? It really is not all that difficult either, when you know how or you have the right cutters.
I will admit that I do not go the whole hog when I prepare the vegetables, but I do like to cut a few of them in some fancy way, just to give the diners a surprise and bring an unexpected smile to their faces.
So, here are six of my top tips for the preparation of your culinary delight.
Speedy Recovery: you can revive wilted parsley by running it under the cold water tap and wringing it out rather roughly in the corner of a clean teacloth.
It will look so much more appetising.
Colour Co-Ordination: items or ingredients of the same colour often look far more striking than random or contrasting mixes.
Try the effect of mixing various shades of green salad together in a bowl or fruits of red, yellow or green in individual dishes.
The effect is really quite stunning.
Roses And Radishes: to turn a radish into a 'rose', simply slit it from tip to base with a sharp knife and put it in ice-cold water.
I will open up on its own.
Spring onions will curl back too, if you cut them from the bulb to the top of the shoot and put them in cold water.
Fork Them Over: removing small berries such as red currants from their stalks can be a very tedious job and your fingers can get stained too.
The easiest way to do it is to run the berry stems through the tines of a fork.
It may seem a bit rough, but it works and you will not burst many.
Getting Rid Of Grease: if your stew or soup, particularly lamb stew, has become a bit greasy on the surface, do not despair.
Excess grease can be removed by laying some lettuce leaves on the surface of the liquid.
After a few minutes, they will have absorbed the excess grease and can be discarded.
Similarly, if you have been a bit heavy-handed with the salt, boils few potatoes in the soup or stew and they will absorb the salt.
They can be discarded too or left in as additional filler.
Weighing Honey: when a recipe calls for a certain weight of honey, syrup, jam or anything sticky like that, put the tin on the scales and spoon out what you need, subtracting the amount from the weight of the tin and its contents.
If your recipe calls for dry ingredients too, put them in the bowl first; it makes mixing and cleaning easier.