Today was quite a good day. I was dreading going to work again (unfortunately an increasing trend over the last few weeks). Slowly, it's become clear that promotion is a far, far distant thing, for which I need to actually become superwoman for at least three years. Promotion, in my office, feels like a battle. Rather than any sort of reward for actually doing your job, it is taken for granted (apparently) that you will excel at your job. What is needed is to excel, and then revitalise the structure of the company, find several new authors and lick the boots of HR. All this for an assistant editor position and a measly grand raise. Without doing those things, they will just continue, apparently, to pay you 19 grand for the next twelve years and expect you to work overtime. Without attempting to come across as bitter and twisted - this is a company actively trying to look for reasons to avoid promoting you and therefore paying more. It's like trying to actually get on the plane if one is flying with Ryanair. There are four of us in the same cramped yellow seats, at first sight. However, after a while it becomes clear that actually the entire editorial team, excepting the senior eds, are in the same position. And even the senior eds are chasing bonuses, raises and probably attempting to move into better paid and less stressful positions in another company altogether. It's exhausting, and having just moved into it, I can't seem to care enough. I'd like to work somewhere doing your job gives you a bit more money to start with, and where people aren't endlessly scrounging for scraps from the company that owns the company that owns that company that owns us. There's a really horrible, scared and resentful feeling throughout editorial. It's clearly time to leave and go into food technology.

Speaking of food (and I usually end up doing so), tonight was the pork steaks. I've never had pork steaks before, and I'm not entirely sure what they are really for. Steaks, surely, are worthwhile only to eat as rare as possible? Also, Donald-Russell-extremely-posh-butchers, tell your customers what cut the steak is! Pork leg steaks are going to be a bit different from pork fillet, and not knowing made me nervous. Maybe I'm meant to know automatically but, well, I didn't. Anyway, I was considering what to do with them, in between laughing at one of my (not completely intentionally, but so incredibly sweet) funniest authors, and decided to try out a Spoonfed recipe. I don't know if any of you -

*pause in writing as my incredibly drunk boyfriend, who returned from a gig 15 minutes ago and has spent the intervening time being very sick, comes to stand naked in front of me, grin on face, singing the Venga boys, and swaying slightly. He's continuing to talk, sounding like a stoned Stuart Lee, but with a waggling willy. I am continuing to ignore him (and it). He is also emanating a faint smell of vomit. Ah, true love.
- have tried Spoonfed suppers href="http://www.spoonfedsuppers.com/">http://www.spoonfedsuppers.com/. It's worth a look. However, since my most beloved recipes all take at least four hours, and the USP of Spoonfed suppers is 'a recipe for every day that takes only 30mins to cook', I'd considered myself slightly the wrong audience. However, the honey sticky chicken recipe of today seemed to lend itself perfectly to pork steaks. I made a couple of adjustments but basically just marinated the pork steaks in olive oil, soy sauce, tomato ketchup, mustard and honey, plus some diced and crushed fresh garlic. I left them for about 30 mins, then as per the recipe laid them in a roasting tray with some thin slices of courgette, poured over the marinade and grilled them for about 15 mins, turning halfway. I ate them with sesame seed noodles and cabbage - and have learnt a couple of things. Cook pork steaks a bit less long (they were a little tough, if incredibly tasty, but think I prefer fattier cuts), greek basil and cabbage have an unexpected affinity and make sure the noodles still have some bite when you try to stir fry them. It worked very well though - good marinade, if not the most interesting - might add a bit of rice wine next time as I think this would have helped, and lovely caramelized taste. I think, however, that there wasn't enough fat in this cut to get the real sticky, pig/honey taste I was going for. However, also very unsure that this would work better with chicken breast.

Finally, today picked up at the end as I finally reached the end of a book one of my authors had revised. I had been worried, as it looked like a lot of the revisions hadn't been done, however it took flight near the end and I finished the book in tears! Proper, driven by a good happy ending tears! This has only happened to me once before, and was very exciting. I therefore have the high that comes only from telling an author how they might be able to make a book more effective, them being talented enough to go beyond what you've said and turn the book around rather than blindly following your orders and then the book becoming immeasurably more powerful. I suppose really that's the only thing that can hope to justify the 19 grand. Banking just doesn't have the same allure...

Hello all,

I've been promising myself to come and write about Edinburgh and Meat Day before I forget all about both, so here goes:

Meat Day:

I turned 26 on the 10th of August and am now only four years away from 30 and an increased possibility of dying alone. Especially, I am reliably informed, if I continue to leave wet towels on the bed instead of hanging them up properly. However, more importantly than my increased age, five white hairs (the hairdresser actually Mentioned them), and vein on one leg, my mother sent me a gorgeous box of organic, beautifully butchered meat. It arrived at work, scaring the hell out of Brenda the receptionist and proved far too large to fit in our crappy work fridge. Since the library is by far the coldest place in our windowless, factory-aired sauna of an office, I was obliged to store the package next to the books and send an email round. "Don't mind the white package beneath the Romances, it's just meat. Please leave it alone."

I eventually made it home (turns out a massive, white, polystyrene crate will ensure you a seat on a carriage even when people are too grumpy to form whole words), and discovered a fabulous mix of lots of mini-cuts for me to test out. I was deeply, incredibly happy, and have therefore decided to make a concerted effort to document what I do with each bit of meat. That first evening I picked the pork burgers. They were the kind of pork burgers I've never had before - they were pure, beautiful, juicy meat all the way through. They took longer to cook than I'd imagined as there was simply so much meat to cook through- turns out breadcrumbs and bits of nostril cook far faster than real meat. I fried them on a medium heat for about 20 mins.

With the pork burgers, I made mushrooms and broccoli with soy sauce, chilli and 5-spice. It was a bit salty, so remember not to over soy sauce it (one table spoon is easily enough), and also made a quick version of dauphinoise potatoes (par boil the potatoes first, then slice thinly. Fry up some onions and garlic in a saucepan. Rub a bit of butter round an oven proof dish then layer in potatoes, onions and garlic, herbs of choice and salt and pepper. Repeat this until the dish is full, then pour over some full cream milk, about a third up the side of the dish. Grate parmesan or cheddar over the top, and whack it in the oven at about gas 5 for at least 20 mins. Par-boiling isn't ideal, as makes the texture a bit mushy, and ideally you want to be cooking the potatoes in the milk. However, it is quicker!). It was actually extremely yummy.

Tonight, I've defrosted the lamb noisettes. There are four, and they are beautiful. The plan is to fry them to medium rare (they are quite small) make a roasted garlic, wine and redcurrant sauce from some of the pan juices, wilt some spinach and serve with mustard mash. We shall see how it goes, and if I manage to serve it before 11pm...

As to Edinburgh, we've just got back after four exhausting but extremely fun days of watching endless stand up, sketches and theatrical attempts. It was fantastic, and also fantastically expensive, but never mind. We saw: "Do We Look Like Refugees?" a fantastic play where the actors could hear the voices of the original interviewees through headphones and had to repeat them exactly, leaving no room for artifice and effectively turning the actor into a mouthpiece rather than an interpreter. Sounds incredibly pretentious, but actually was Brilliant - made far more difference than I had imagined. Also saw Frisky and Manish again (insane pop mash up couple who are ridiculously talented and could carve up Girls Aloud and eat them medium rare for dinner. Although most people could probably do that). Sammy J was really good - sweet, funny little songs and a sweet, incredibly hot and long-legged man who you wanted to take home and cuddle for ever more. Cabaret Whore - the most beautiful woman alive - incidentally, Fish and I have both come back from Edinburgh deeply in love, but with other people - who moved smoothly through four different incarnations while occasionally playing a ukelele (an unexpected theme of the festival, as happens in Edinburgh when all the acts suddenly seem to hook onto a particular thing, Inception jokes being another one). David O'Docherty, a very appealing Irish man during whose act I fell a bit asleep, but who was really talented and the lovely, archaically-voiced Miles Jupp. *sighs happily. His voice could cut diamonds - screw glass. Finally, saw a free play that was very worth mentioning: called The Flat, it was mainly notable for some fantastic portraits of archetypes, particularly when it came to sharing a flat with girls. 'Like, I don't want to be a bitch, but has someone been at my John Frieda shampoo again? It's not, like a massive deal, but it is really expensive, and like, I just think it's a bit out of order...' Sharing flats with girls involves gritted teeth and picking endless clumps of hair out of the bath - give me a smelly man and free sex any day. Though I admit I miss the occasional unexpected nights of white wine and sofas, still probably worth it in the long run.

Right, on that uninspiring ending, I've just realised the time. Shit. Now really do not have long to cook at all if I'm to beat the 11pm deadline... *runs.