The fish was dory, which was coated in Earl Grey tea and various other spices and seasoning, and then grilled in olive oil. It tasted like fish, my beleagured boyfriend mumbled round his screwed-up face of poorly diguised distaste. But now I know to scrape the tea off before serving it. And remember the number of times I added salt.

A pity about the dory though. My mom has a wicked dory recipe. (Not my experiment!) But after Finding Nemo, I find myself staring desultorily at the slabs of dory fillets behind the cold glass of the counter, remembering the bright blue maniac. Nemo, by the way, courtesy of my latin translations, means "no one". And so I understood the final joke of the movie. Someone was trying to be a smarty-pants in the production team.

But back to the unfortunate appearance of my lemon-lime disaster.

It smelt sweet, syrupy, fresh and tangy. But it would not congeal when I attempted to freeze it. We need a better freezer, or a better dessert chef.

It would swirl sluggishly, with pretty white, light green and pale green patterns when I stirred it. I should be breaking ice crystals, not pretty patterned mush. It was not even slush.

It was cold enough that my tongue stuck to the spoon I used for tasting. After 18 hours, I had labouriously made lemon-lime cordial on my hands. I tried to salvage it, by pretending it would work as cordial, but the thought of looking at another absymal failure for days on end, and drinking it as opposed to eating it won out.

That, and the hanging threat of diabetes. Which is silly once you think about it. I did plan to eat it.