The fall and fall of Saint Delia

I really like cooking. When I first moved in with my partner he put on 2 stone. I often spend a happy Sunday afternoon baking. I have made my own granola. I own (when it comes from Amazon) an icing kit, and enough copies of Good Food that they have bent the shelf in my kitchen. I can out-food-snob anyone and have not eaten more than 10 bits of White Sliced in the last fifteen years, hooray, and indeed went through a period of only making my own bread (when I started thinking seriously about sourdough starters I felt it was time to get a more demanding job).

(picture to prove my foodie credentials)

However, I also have a job at which I work long hours, other stuff to do, and some semblance of a life: there are evenings when I cannot face even walking in the kitchen, and when slicing up a lemon to put in a gin and tonic would be as impossible as creating a millefeuille. And I don’t have children. If I had children and also had to hold down a job and clean the house more than once a month I would think I was doing well opening a packet of Cheese Strings of an evening and occasionally slipping them a satsuma to stave off scurvy. So leave Delia Smith alone, everyone! I am not fancying the tinned minced lamb and Aunt Bessie’s frozen mashed potato myself, but, you know, the sentiment isn’t that bad.

Because although I am absolutely in agreement that food cooked from scratch tastes better and is much better for you, and that it is a really good idea to eat organic, and local, and shop fresh every day etc etc, is it really possible to combine doing that all the bloody time with a job where you often work till 7 and at weekends, a relationship, a life, and other stuff that you might want to do? I don’t think it is. In fact, I would say that the current emphasis on cooking from scratch being some kind of moral bloody compass just puts more pressure on women. I think some of it’s about look how crap the nation’s food has become since women started working and selfishly enjoying themselves. Let’s make them feel really guilty about it. If I was Susan Faludi I would now work that idea into a very large book. As I am not, I will content myself with this blog post. Gratin Dauphinoise tonight, because I’m not at work. When I’m back at work next week it’ll be M&S ready meals and I won’t be ashamed at all.

Happy Birthday Uncle Melv! 60 today! (are we sure though?)