Tribute to bad cooks everywhere

Let’s hear it for Delia Smith, a woman who, for the first time ever has made me contemplate buying a cookery book.
Her idea to conjure up a bagful of tasty recipes using convenience foods is a brainwave that leaves me in dumbstruck awe – while chuckling as I picture Jamie, Gordon and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall fighting it out over food ethics by bashing each other over the head with battery-farmed chickens.
Good old Delia, a humble kitchen maestro without Nigella’s suggestive pout or Jamie’s trendy youth-speak, has stayed in the shadows for years while a multitude of celebrity chefs have risen to prominent glory, pontificating about what we should and shouldn’t eat, making us feel guilty if we haven’t got an allotment, herb garden and free range chickens hurtling around our gardens. Making us feel – or it is just me? – that we are hopeless cooks.
Being a Norwich City supporter it is hardly surprising that Delia has kept her head down for a while, but she has risen like a phoenix to knock Jamie and co off the top spot. Move over Gordon, 66-year-old Delia is head chef again, master of the apron strings, top dog in the kitchens.
And it’s all thanks to Delia’s How To Cheat At Cooking. Everyone is talking about it, even me.
And food manufacturers are rubbing their hands together with glee as Delia names the best convenience foods to cook up a storm. For example, to make a quick spinach tortelloni with leeks and Gorgonzola, she recommends fresh spinach and ricotta tortellini from either Tesco or Sainsbury’s, and dried ciabatta breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan from Tesco.
Such recommendations are expected to produce the “Delia effect” – a term included in the Collins English Dictionary in 2001 after she sent sales of cranberries through the roof after using them on television. Customers also bought 54 million extra eggs after she showed the nation how to boil or fry them.
Among recommendations in her book are Fratelli Camisa, an Italian fine food supplier that stocks Martelli pasta, spices from Seasoned Pioneers, Marks and Spencer’s roasted red and yellow peppers in oil and jalapeno peppers from the Cooks’ Ingredients range by Waitrose. Even Aunt Bessie’s instant mashed potato gets a look in.
Pre-orders on the book alone have made it a best-seller and it’s obvious why. Time. We don’t have enough of it. Yes, it would be wonderful to wander off to our vegetable patches, hand-pick lunch and rustle up a vitamin-packed dinner for the kids. But, in all reality, many of us struggle to find time to buy food, let alone cook it – let alone grow it!
The likes of Jamie Oliver make it look so easy but cooking is their job. We have jobs too, but they generally don’t involve us performing culinary miracles in front of a TV camera. After a day’s grafting, we have houses to clean, washing to cope with, families to care for, chores to do – then we have to cook. Big difference.
Of course there are those who like to cook. I see them on Master Chef every week and watch in humble admiration.
But I’m from the Delia Smith school of thought. If it’s got more than five ingredients and takes more than half an hour to cook, forget it.
Having said that, I try to cook healthily. Pasta is my staple diet. Taught by the Italians, I know who to make a tomato sauce to die for and this has served me well for more than 20 years.
I’ve amazed friends, impressed at dinner parties and managed to keep my kids well fed and happy with one basic recipe. Perhaps I should write a book about it.
In case you can’t wait that long, here’s what you do. Dollop some olive oil in a pan and fry some bacon bits (Aldi’s are good) until crispy. Keep the heat low and add some crushed garlic (TV chefs tell you not to use a crusher but what do they know?).
Give it a stir and, after a couple of minutes, add a carton of rich tomato sauce (every supermarket has some). Stir from time to time, add a bit of pepper and leave to gather flavour while you chuck any pasta of your choice into boiling water.
By the time the pasta is ready the sauce should taste delicious. Drain your pasta, add some of the sauce and give it all a good stir to stop the pasta sticking. Serve in a bowl with more sauce on top and sprinkle with hand-grated Parmesan (Aldi’s Parmesan is a great buy). Hey presto, good healthy food.
Now that, to me, is sensible cooking. I can also make a mean cappuccino and my banana and yoghurt sundaes are superb.
Aside from that, my cooking is so awful my sons let out a cheer every morning if I manage to produce boiled eggs that are runny as opposed to rock hard.
Three more cheers please – for hopeless cooks and Delia.