Cooking up a storm on TV

I tuned into one of those morning television pseudo-psychologists last week and he warned of subtle social behavioural changes the longer we stay in‘lockdown’.

He was spot on.

I found myself watching The Hairy Bikers on a cookery programme and noticed a big behavioural change. I didn’t switch them off! Instead, I watched these two leather layered loons lay waste to the etiquette of European epicure . . .and still knock up plate after plate of rather desirable grub! ’

I’ve now got eyes like dinner plates after binging on the Food Channel for20 hours a day.

Without even touching the remote – I can tell you with confidence that James Martin’s Yorkshire is the programme after Rachel Allen’s Cakes.

And I’ve become almost obsessed with The Barefoot Contessa and The Pioneer Woman – two larger than life American ladies who appear to make a healthy living by allowing cameras to record them preparing their partners’ dinners!

Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, apparently lives on an Oklahoma ranch that makes Ben Cartwright’s‘Ponderosa’look like a window box.

While her husband rides out to mend fences and rope steers – home lovin’ Ree cooks up dishes that would feed the entire Irapaho nation.

Meanwhile, up in The Hamptons, Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten does a slightly posher version of more or less the same.

She makes plates of pasta and salad that fall over the edge of your imagination. And husband Jeffrey only comes home at weekends!

But the chef who really does it for me is Raymond Blanc – who effortlessly oozes garlic puree one minute and Gallic charm the next.

To cook like Raymond, all you need is a backdrop of shining copper pans, a spotlessly white chef’s jacket and to say the words“voila”or“c’est bon”at the end of every preparation. Already a full blown gastronomic genius – and with my Masterchef 2021 entry in the post – all that’s letting me down is my larder.

According to my Tesco‘Click and Collect’app – that’s the third week in a row they’ve ran out of red snapper, sea urchins and shimeji mushrooms.