The life and history of cous cous in this girl's life

Ever since I had the most divine starter (cous cous with tomato, mozarella and chilli) at a restaurant on Charlotte Street a few months ago, I have become quite intrigued (dare I say obsessed?) by cous cous.

Intrigued enough to want to learn to make cous cous, despite my mountain of doubts - how do you cook cous cous? how long do you cook it for? what do you cook it with? how is it eaten?

I started off timidly with a packet of flavoured instant cous cous (49p from Safeway) more than a month ago. Graduated to normal packet of plain cous cous, boiled with sundried tomatoes.

Saturday, the rare culinary bug bit me again, and I attempted my third batch of cous cous - cous cous with sundried tomatoes, melted with grated mozarella cheese with a sprinkling of basil (the only "Western" herb that I managed to scavenge from the random bottles of herbs and spices), with a side of boiled asparagus.

I rarely feel inspired to cook, but once I do, I really get into it, and want an all-encompassing experience. Proper food, layout, set out beautifully on a solid, wide plate, with lovely, heavy cutlery. Yes, I'm very particular about the cutlery I eat with. And yesterday, after carefully arranging my asparagus spears into a fan around the cous cous, I realised with dismay that while I had a lovely heavy spoon which felt so solid and luxurious in my hand, I had a really thin, light, and poorly made fork. And a desperate ransacking of all the kitchen drawers did not yield a fork (nor knife!) worthy to match my spoon.

Resolution: to buy a lovely set of cutlery (that includes chopsticks!)

My housemates scoffed at my avowed intention: How often do you even eat at home?

True, I willingly concede their point. But the fact is, whenever I Do eat at home... especially whenever I cook, it's actually crucial to my enjoyment that I have cutlery I like, crazy as that may sound.

Today, I had Jackie over for lunch, and I experimented even more with the cous cous - with sundried tomatoes, dried chilli (the kind used in Chinese cooking), Italian and mixed herbs (the basil had run out, and these were two other bottles of "Western" herbs I found in the cupboard), sliced chestnut mushrooms, and melted with mozarella.

(Does this process not remind you of that awful nursery rhyme "The House that Jack Built".)

While I don't think I have exhausted the possibilities of cous cous yet, I have been musing increasingly on mango. More specifically, mango with fish. I had a softshell crab with mango handroll an softshell crab with mango roll. The mixture of taste was surprising and delightful, and has since slowly suffused through my system, giving me time to marinate upon it.

Now the question is - what fish?