what I ate last: finally decided to abandon my friend and eat my roast beef, mash, spinach and saute yellow courgettes

As an adjunct to that last post, the worst experience of this kind was when I used to cook at egg for the whole staff at lunchtime, and just as the food was ready a huge influx of customers would enter the shop. As I was cooking for £1 per person, it was generally either pasta, risotto, some kind of noodle dish or something equally cheap. I became expert at undercooking pasta and rice so that by the time we had finished serving the customers it would still be edibly al dente.