If you cook often enough, you are going to have a kitchen injury. Knives, mandolines, hot oven racks, boiling liquids - all are potentially dangerous and most cooks have a scar or two that tells a tale of kitchen woe. So too does The Guardian's Jay Rayner, who writes that "Making dinner means dicing with danger."

While not exactly proud of the various small scars from cuts and burns that he has received over the years, Rayner does look on them with a sort of fondness. "They are my life in the kitchen, written on the body, the physical marks of someone who has diced vegetables and chopped onions, fretted over stock pots and poked at roasts, tasted sauces, deep fried and charred and blitzed," he says.

I've had my share of cooking injuries, and I carry a few minor scars: one at the base of my thumb where a mandoline exacted its revenge, a few faded strips on my forearms from touching the side or top of the oven while maneuvering sheet pans, and a fresh scrape on my thumb, the origins of which remain a mystery other than it happened during dinner prep. These are overshadowed by the injuries that didn't leave a mark, like singed eyebrows and various nicks that healed without a scar.

While I don't look at the lasting reminders of these cuts and burns with pride, like Rayner I find them to be distinguished vestiges of my love for kitchen craft. Although I try to be careful, I know that I'm likely to endure a few more before I hang up my apron, but this doesn't daunt me. A few small bruises are the price I am willing to pay for the satisfaction I receive from cooking and baking.