Just returned from library.
Mum looked so at ease and pleased I couldn't help but be happy. Wendy, the lady in charge, took mum under her wing showing her where the large print crime novels were, I stood back, allowing mum a taste of her old life...
In addition to her six murder books mum allowed me to take out recipe books. One by the lovely Mary Berry the other Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diary. I'm excited, satisfied and warmed by them already. Waiting for the kettle to boil I had a quick flick...There's something sensuous about loving food. The few sentences I read were teeming with adoration and perfect mash. I wonder what Nigel would think if he knew I'd be opening a can of Spam.

Vicky With Attitude

I do not like television cooks, particularly the loud ghastly show-offy type ones like Ramsay.
I used to like Delia Smith, got most of her books, but I think she's gone a bit bonkers.
There are so many cooks/chefs on tv now that I can't bear to watch any of them, except the divine Nigel Slater. His programme currently showing on BBC2, where he talks with actors and people like that about their food memories, is an oasis of sweetness in the violent troubled desert of tv cooking shows. As a presenter he's my dream. I recently bought a book of his, 'Real Fast Food'. I read it like it held the secret to life itself. An excellent writer and he even wears nice glasses. What is it about me and men with glasses?

But I digress.
I'm talking about tv cooks/chefs not my sexual fantasies.
My earliest memory of food on tv is, I think, 'The Galloping Gourmet', he gave me the creeps, he was a bit of a ladies man I think, the way he used to salivate over a plate of goulash made me glurk.
In the eighties I enjoyed watching Keith Floyd as he slurped his wine and threw prawns in woks and things, he was a delight.
I think cooking should be fun as well as practical, we have to gobble otherwise we'd get all skinny and die, but the preparation and cooking of our dinners and late night feasts should be a performance. And I can often be seen dancing as I bake yet another cake. I WAS NOT dancing when I made the above cake however, because it is a serious cake. The topping is my own recipe. Anyone who wants the recipe can have it, just ask.
I really must dash but before I do...


Here's a list of my favourite cook/writers.Past and Present. And why.
Delia (with reservations, she was my favourite for like years and years and her Minestrone Soup was the first soup I made, but I'm not sure about her now because she advocates the use of Frozen Mash)
Mary Berry (Straightforward, no nonsense chef, ALL my favourite cake recipes are hers.
Madhur Jaffrey (My first Indian recipe book and I discovered Sookhe Aloo)
Cas Clarke (Not on tv, but a good all round writer of recipes who I rely on constantly)
Nigel Slater (For his fabulous simple recipes and the poetic way he writes about sausages.

The picture above is my version of a simple Victoria Sponge, but with attitude. The creamy yet crunchy coconut topping is my own recipe.
Thank You.