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It’s finally happened: the young guy has moved out of home, found a flat, and has found a girl. And now the girl is visiting for dinner.

Slight hitch: our young hero has never cooked before. That was always mum’s job, but he realises that he has to learn – and he’s desperate to impress his new girl. The last thing he wants to be viewed as is as a “Mummy’s Boy”!

With his brand new, never-used cook book that he purchased at the mall that morning, he decides on Spaghetti Bolognese.

Following the recipe was surprisingly tricky
It looked so simple, but our guy’s a

bit stumped between the difference between “simmering” and “boiling”. Surely that’s the same thing? So the pasta turned out rather too crunchy. (The recipe called for it to be “al dente” – something to do with teeth, surely? If it meant hard enough to crack a tooth, then our young fellow had pretty much achieved this.)

And what the heck is “julienne” carrots? He only found regular, orange carrots at the supermarket. And threw them into the sauce whole. Therefore, like the pasta, they turned out a little too crunchy too.

He serves the meal to his girl
And she was delighted. Yes, the meal wasn’t perfect – but at least he’d tried. (She knew it was the first time he’d ever cooked, and didn’t want to put her beau off from trying again, smart girl!)

And indeed, he was heartened by her appreciation and support. He realised that he hadn’t gotten things quite right, but hey, he could learn.

Marketing is a recipe too
It’s also a very personalised recipe, that you’ll need to figure out for yourself.

To get the recipe right for your business, you might need more of one ingredient or less of another. Or your stove might be cranking at a higher heat; or it might not have warmed up properly.

The important thing is to keep tasting your recipe as you’re cooking. If you know how it’s going, you can season it, adjust it.

And soon, you will have created something so delicious, so enticing, that your customers just keep coming back for seconds… and thirds… as many helpings as they can get.

Just beware - the seasons change
While one ingredient is plentiful this month; it may not be in the stores next month. Or it may be unfashionable and your customers refuse to taste it any more, even though they couldn’t get enough of it last month.

So you’ll need to keep tweaking and adjusting that recipe, to cater for your customers’ changing tastes… buon appetito!