Celebrity Chefs

‘It makes sense, of course, to always make sure the golden-hamster droppings come to a slow boil before simmering for 176.235 seconds. Then drain them and allowing them to dry on the naked stomach of a Peruvian supermodel, before attempting to grate them over the nearest available member of your home-grown herd of antelope as they migrate across the wild open savannah of your kitchen.’

Obviously, for the rest of us, who occupy normal space and time, such recipes are far beyond what we have available in our more modest kitchens. For not only do these celebrity chefs presume that we – in the ordinary and mundane planes of existence – have easy access to organic peasant-reared hand-dried golden hamster droppings, or whatever this season’s trendiest ingredient is, they also seem to assume that we can afford to buy such things, even if we are lucky enough to find a shop that sells them… or – for that matter – has even heard of them.

Not only that, they seem to have a kitchen the size of several football pitches filled with all manner of devices, technology, equipment and peripherals that make our bent rolling pin and rusty apple-corer look more than inadequate as they chop, slice, whiz, drizzle and do all manner of arcane culinary manipulations to their pile of golden hamster droppings that would cost ordinary folks the best part of a month’s wages; let alone enable us to afford the rest of the ingredients.

So we sigh, turn off the telly, head off into a kitchen half the size of the box the celebrity chef gets her golden hamster droppings delivered to her door in, and we make a salt ‘n’ vinegar crisp sandwich using the best supermarket own-brand sliced white we can afford, spread liberally with a butter substitute that has the taste, consistency and spreadability of decade-old axle grease, drizzled almost liberally with value-brand salt ’n’ vinegar proto-crisps that may once have has a nodding acquaintance with a real potato , but that was so long ago that they no longer have any memory of it.

Then, satisfied, replete and in awe of our own culinary skills we return to the TV to see if there is anything better on now.