My only option was to hare off to my new school and try to make 70 pints of soup. But first, I went to a deli and bought them out of cream cheese plus tins of mussel, cream of artichoke, Vichyssoise and cream of onion soup. Then the teachers fanned out to the shops with instructions to buy more. At last, I was blindingly sure of what I wanted to do: I was going to become a cook. Easier said than done: at 20, one of the few things I'd ever made was a Christmas cake with concrete icing that had...