Bon appetit!

This all started when my daughter picked as subject for her term paper in English the cook, Jamie Oliver. And, yes, Daddy did help Daughter from the outset,.suggesting Google search strings and faithfully emailing links to pertinent newspaper stories. But not, of course, doing any of the writing!

Then we started, both of us, reading about Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food. The project in Rotherham, Yorkshire, and the recipe book are based on the chef's belief that anyone can learn to cook.

Daddy and Daughter do have an excuse for not hitherto donning pinnie or clattering saucepans. The reason... ex-wife is a brilliant gourmet cook in her own right!

But she was out of town last weekend. And I'd bought the recipe book and the makings of a Chicken Tikka Masala which is, as we all know, the national dish of Great Britain.

It was absolutely super, both easy and fun to make. It actually made me wish my compact flat had a proper kitchen (instead of a tiny cupboard just big enough for the fridge for wine and the Nespresso machine) so that I could continue my schooling in the gastronomic arts.

Daughter's paper is about Britain's Nutrition Crisis and Jamie Oliver's Answers. To me it seems his main message is that if you can make it cool to cook, not just for a foodie elite, then there could be a generation free of the curse of obesity and the associated health problems.