Cordon Blue

‘Thanks dear. Yes, can I have a chocolate biscuit with that? I’ll just look through this book and then I’ll start tea. You get on with your jigsaw; I’ll call you when it’s ready. Won’t be long. Oh can I have two biscuits? You are a love. Now don’t get too involved with that jigsaw, we don’t want to be eating too late.’

I love cookery books. I especially like those written by the chefs you see on the TV. They’re so clever, they can cook fantastic meals and write books about them. I watch all those programmes, getting ideas for meals, knowing where to buy the best ingredients and I know now that I should buy free range and organic. Good for me and for the planet.

I’ve got a shelf in the kitchen stuffed full of books. If I want to know how to fillet a fish the answer’s there in one of them, if I’m having a dinner party for friends I just have to browse and there’s the ideal menu. Special Sunday teatime treats for the grandchildren are easily found in one of my well-thumbed tomes. I even have one on my bedside table. The problem is I get so interested I find it difficult to put down and go to sleep.

Now this one has just come out, it goes with the new TV series. I do prefer the male chefs; they seem to know much more about cooking than women, and get on better. All the big names and those with Michelin stars are men. Strange that when its usually women who do all the cooking at home!

Even the cover makes you want to dive in and cook something. Just look at that loaf of bread, you can almost smell it!

It’s not only about food you know. It’s a lifestyle. I like it when we get to see where they live. They have such lovely kitchens, all the equipment you’d ever need. I’d love an Aga but there’s only just room in my little kitchen for a standard sized oven. That’s my dream you know. If I won the lottery I’d buy a new house of course, but it would be the kitchen that would sell it to me. There’d be the Aga and plenty of work surfaces. I’d have all the pots, pans and electrical equipment needed and there would be an enormous bookcase for all my cookbooks. There would be a larder for all the packets, tins and jars that would be needed. I’d have one of those giant American fridge freezers, which they all seem to have when you see them on the Tele. Pride of place would be given to the dining table, big enough for the whole family to sit round. It’s so up to the minute to have a ‘dining kitchen’. My mother always wanted to have a separate dining room, so old fashioned. With a dining kitchen you can cook and talk to family and friends at the same time.

I will have matching china, enough cutlery for each course and glasses suitable for red and white wine. There will be champagne flutes for special occasions. There’s only room for four of us round my kitchen table, and then we knock elbows. I did have a whole set of plates that I found in Oxfam, there’s only two left and one’s chipped.

The other thing I’d have in my dream home would be a garden with a vegetable patch. All the best chefs have one, that Raymond whatisname even goes out and picks his own herbs. I think Jo would quite like pottering about in a garden. I’ve tried growing things on the balcony but nothing thrives. Not enough sun and the greenfly seem to eat everything. I do have a few gardening books but they don’t have the answers I need. According to the telly chefs fresh ingredients make all the difference. Mind you it is difficult to buy free range and organic in our local supermarket, and when they have it I can’t always afford it.

I wonder why all the great chefs seem to be French or Italian? I suppose they have a different attitude to food, it’s more important to them. From what I’ve read the whole family gathers together around the kitchen table and spends hours talking and eating. I’d love that. Not like here, we eat it as quickly as we can, usually off our laps, so that we can sit and watch the soaps, or with me the cookery programmes.

I think very carefully about menus. I plan out the starter, the main course and the dessert, Jo will insist on calling it ‘afters’. I even work out which wines will go with which course. I have even planned out the meal we’ll have if we win the lottery and I get my new kitchen. That will be a really special meal, not just the three courses but a fish course as well and one of those things they serve to freshen the palate. There’ll also be cheese and biscuits to finish with some of that really smelly French cheese. Coffee will come from one of those noisy machines and there’ll be liqueurs, not something common like Baileys!

I’ve got all these skills at my fingertips, I think I could turn my hand to anything in the culinary world if I needed to, or if given the chance.

‘Jo! Tea will be ready in about twenty minutes. I’ve got one of those nice steak and kidney pies you like from Sainsbury’s and some oven chips. How about as a treat finishing of that bottle of wine we started at the weekend?’

Now if I can get a move on it should all be ready in time for me to watch that lovely programme. You know it’s that competition to find out who’s a really good cook. Anyone can enter. There have been all sorts who’ve entered, lorry drivers, hairdressers, florists, but I think the one who stands a real chance of winning is the banker from Surrey. He seems such a nice man and knows so much about food. I’m thinking about having a go next year.

‘Jo! Put that jigsaw away, tea’s almost ready. Do you fancy a tin of that really creamy rice pudding for dessert?’