Cheating is a must

I just happened upon Delia Smith's book 'How to Cheat'. This book should really be called 'Cooking - A Reality Check...'

Now running a guesthouse can provide time in the afternoon for the preparation of our evening food. We get time to buy, prepare and generally process different ingredients for our evening. But if you work in an office and pick up your dinner on the way home, well! A chicken carcass, giblets and vegetables plus seasonings simmered gently for some hours to make the perfect stock? Which counts as a minor ingredient in the whole dish? Get real. That is restaurant food and belongs firmly there.

So Delia has come up with a book that recognises at last that in addition to kitchens we have lives.

I remember so well how sniffily it was greeted by foodies, reviewers and some chefs. If all they do apart from write is pop into the kitchen to spend a day crafting something that is demolished in 30 minutes (15 if they're really good) then good luck to them.

I'll stick for the life too. I tried the very first recipe tonight (the cheesy roast potatoes - there was no ready grated Gruyere so I admit to doing this but it took less than 1 minute so doesn't count) and the whole dish plus gammon steaks took less than 30 minutes and did not leave a whole fridge full of stuff I hope to use but throw after 4 or 5 days.

Well done Delia for turning your attention to us on planet earth and giving us hope. I have some of your other books too and when I have the sort of time usually set aside for jigsaw puzzles or reading novels I'll be back in those creating the longer versions (this sentence seems to presume Delia has time to read obscure blogs but maybe nowadays she has the time with all these cheats!).