What I found peculiarly gripping about The F Word, Gordon Ramsay’s recent televisual offering, was the monstrous regiment of women announcing their inability to cook. I’m afraid I find this incredibly lazy. If you can read, you should be able to follow a recipe (the River Cottage Family Cookbook, written with 12-year-olds in mind, is foolproof). I’ve noticed that the people who claim not to be able to cook are always able to rustle up cocktails, which is a far more esoteric skill.
Cooking is worth the effort, especially since a survey commissioned by a dating agency revealed that 60% of men think about food far more than they do about sex. So a weekend’s cookery course is a better investment in your love life than any amount of waxing or Matthew Williamson. For the truly hopeless, however, there is a way out: M&S’s revamped Cook! range. It is additive-free, made from the best ingredients, but semi-prepared, so you can appear to rustle up a delicious fillet steak on a crouton with gorgonzola melt and winter-veg selection (£8.99 for two) without doing much more than switching on the oven. Still, I suppose you risk breaking a nail.
FANCY PANS
Swanky French cookware isn’t cheap, but elegant yet chunky design from Cristel makes their pans a classy kitchen choice. The base and sides are made of a stainless-steel and aluminium sandwich — aluminium is the better conductor, so the contents get hotter more quickly. Be warned, however: once the temperature is as high as you want it, turn down the heat. While cooking rather distractedly, I blackened three onions in succession and my risotto stuck to the bottom.
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Cristel cookware, from £59.95 for a 14cm saucepan with domed lid; 01276 683688, www.kitchenkapers.co.uk