The monotony of a long term cook

Putting the last candy sweet, acid bright lick of icing onto a showstopper challenge cake, lifting a glass cloche to unleash a puff of fragranced steam, watching a swoosh of rich jus being painted, just so, onto the pristine white of a porcelain plate. These are sights that I cannot get enough of on my television screen.

The Great British Bake Off is must-see viewing for all the family, and I can be found, surrounded by a squirming sea of boys, glued to the soggy bottoms whenever the series airs. The orgasmic groans of Gregg Wallace as a particularly delicious pudding melts its way down his throat have me in paroxysms of joy, and don't get me started on Heston's Feast. When he crafts a jelly baby out of ox's blood and angel's breath (or something equally implausible) I can hardly contain myself.

Which is why it surprises me how dull I find cooking nowadays. You would think that someone with shelves bulging with bright ideas from Nigella and Jamie, a monthly subscription to Good Food Magazine and a family-sized belly to prove my enthusiasm for the consumption of food would enjoy the process of the creation of food more than most.

It was not ever thus, once I did relish whipping up a delectable feast for lovers, friends and sometimes, at a push, even family. I remember my first serious relationship, which spanned my late teens and early 20s, was measured in grand meals I would cook for our unappreciative young friends. They would happily live off Pringles, booze and huge chocolate bars, but was determined to be 'grown up' and host sophisticated dinner parties replete with herb-crusted lamb and lavender-infused panacea.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that, old before our time, that boyfriend and I reached that stage of boredom with one another that wouldn't usually hit until mid life crisis years and split up when we were just past 25.

It was with a real sense of abandon that I threw out my aprons and matching dinner sets. For a good year I subsisted on Kit Kats, Special K and vats of white wine. While I am sure that I paid the price internally, that divorce diet of hedonsism and self neglect was ideal in terms of slimming me down ready to find my next catch.

Part of the attraction was that my new man helped to restore my deep affection for food and we spent our courtship enjoying romantic meals a deux and lovingly crafting meals for one another.

Then along came children. At first this did little to abate my culinary activities. I remember the night I went into labour I had just put the finishing touches to a chocolate bread and butter pudding ready for a dinner party that weekend. The arrival of a newborn put paid to the party, but we did enjoy the pudding, warmed up from the freezer, some months later.

When it was time for solids the neat, blonde, neon-white smiling Annabel Karmel, nestled herself between the quirky charm of Nigel Slater and the haute cuisine of Gordon Ramsay on my book shelves.

I learned what a mouli was for, and why it should be avoided at all costs, and could find my way to the butternut squash section of the supermarket with my eyes closed. My fridge was soon clogged by icebergs of tiny cubes of frozen mush. Meal times became a fraught battleground as I tried to persuade my son that he would not die if he let a mouthful of courgette pass his lips. I lost, as he is quite right, these are the Devil's vegetables.

This was perhaps the beginning of the end of my love affair with cooking. After spending hours pureeing and mashing all manner of exotic fruits and vegetables, wasting time that could so much more profitably have been spent, slumped, asleep, in front of the TV, seeing it tossed to the floor without even being tasted was soul destroying.

Fast forward through years and years of serving up teas of fish fingers, pizza, pasta and chicken nuggets to an unappreciative audience of children and my romance with cooking has been cremated. Every night I wrack my brains as to what to feed us all that will be nutritious, tasty and easy to make. I fall back on staples that are dull and do little to excite the appetite, but I have neither the will nor the inclination to try harder.

I thought that when my husband took over cooking duties when I went back to work things might improve, but within a month he had that same rabbit caught in headlights look when asked what was for supper.

I used to wonder why my mother said that my grandmother's fondest wish was that they would invent a tablet you could give children that would fill them up and provide them with all the nutrients they needed. Now I know just what she meant and hope that some bright spark will make her wish come true.

Twas the night before school starts

And everything was stirring after six and a half weeks of late bedtimes and lax discipline.

I don't know about you, but this summer holiday seems to have been notable mostly for its length. Day after day of my children knocking about expecting to be fed and entertained has certainly taken its toll. There has been much shortness of temper and exasperation during this last week of the holiday. I think we are all ready for school to start again, not least because if I don't get a stretch of more than two minutes without hearing the wailing cry of "Mummmmeeeee", ring out around the house I will not be held responsible for my actions.

The problem, as I see it, is that families are creatures of routine. We can just about hold it together when steered from minute to minute by sheaves of letters from school telling us that Thursday is cello, Tuesday piano, Monday is football and Wednesday is swimming. When I am given simple steps to follow all is well, but when this is thrown to the four winds and it is me who is solely responsible for my children, chaos ensues.

This summer's shenanigans has been compounded by our house move, which has meant that my limited child entertainment skills have been further hampered by living out of cardboard boxes. Every toy or game the children wanted for the first half of the summer holiday was packed away in a box, and for the second half was strewn across the house as part of Operation Unpack.

My boys, I am sure, think I suffer from OCD when it comes to tidiness. I, on the other hand, justify the decibels reached when screaming at them to keep things tidy as the only thing that keeps us from being recruited for the next series of Hoarders: Buried Alive. So you can imagine how much fun it was chez FDMTG when the entire contents of our house was spread haphazardly across the floor of all the wrong rooms as builders picked their way indelicately about dropping dust and nails in their wake.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to having a boy free house that I can just tidy, without some helpful little soul deciding to undo my good work by setting up an elaborate game involving random pieces from a board game, some beads, several lego pieces and a toy giraffe, only to become enraged should anyone shift any of these vital items by a millimetre.

I do love my children (a mantra I have had to repeat under my breath with increasing regularity during this summer holiday) I suspect that after so many weeks in their close company, absence will make my heart grow much fonder.

I just want to pass the day without having to endlessly provide food and diplomatic services. It has amazed me how one meal segues seamlessly into the next when you are catering for small boys. It appears as if the moment the last mouthful of toast and cereal has been chewed, there are demands for sandwiches for lunch and the moment those crumbs have been scattered all over my pristine breakfast bar it's tea time - again.

Equally, while my boys love each other (a fact that I have had to remind them of on numerous occasions recently), what they love even more is to fight with one another and the only authority who can rule on any disagreement is the all powerful Mummmeeeee. As if I had any control over the actions of these small bundles of irrational impulses otherwise known as my sons.

So, while they deputy head of the twins' new school bemoaned how fast the summer holiday had flown by, I nodded sympathetically while grimly thinking not nearly fast enough!

Golden rules for a family day out

Happy Families!

It's the summer holiday, so naturally your thoughts will be turning to ways of entertaining the children. For all that is written about how boredom is good for children, the reality is often utterly intolerable forcing the average parent to resort to highly expensive and inconvenient amusements. Hence the decision to do a family day out - be it to a theme park, to a stately home or just to anywhere other than under your feet - there are some simple rules I have discovered through painful trial and error, which should go some way towards making the experience more bearable.

So here are my golden rules for a successful family day out:

DON'T DO IT! 

I realise this appears to be a rather contradictory rule, but while bored children within the confines of your home are hard to take, imagine that distilled to the inside of car for several hours on a hot day. It doesn't really bear contemplation and at least at home you are in close proximity to drinks, snacks and a toilet.

LET THEM EAT, AND EAT, AND EAT

If you insist on pressing ahead with this harebrained scheme then you do not, whatever you do, leave the house without a proper supply of food. It amazes me how leaving the house appears to create an insatiable hunger in my boys. It's as if as soon as they are out of range of the fridge their stomachs start to panic. Even a short walk is accompanied by whines that they are hungry, no matter how recently they were fed, and who can forget the soporific effect of a breadstick on a testy toddler? I know that  boxes of raisins were the only way to survive a shopping trip when mine were still buggy bound. For a long car journey the rule is pack as many snacks as you can physically fit around you in the footwell of your car, and you will still run out before you get there.

THE LURE OF THE SILVER SCREEN

I know the reason that you got them out of the house in the first was to get them away from screens, but if your trip is likely to take more than an hour, then sink your principles and plug them right back in again. We have travelled across Europe in blissful silence all courtesy of the combined forces of an iPad and an in-car DVD system. It really is the only way to travel without dumping at least one child beside the motorway when their bickering becomes too much to take.

CHILD'S PLAY

When I was a grown up, as opposed to a parent, the idea of a child-friendly destination filled me with dread. What constituted a good day out was perhaps a brief flit around an historical site, a long walk in the gardens and a slap up lunch in a top notch restaurant. Or maybe there would be live music and a bottle of fizz on a stretch of manicured green lawn, or perhaps an indulgent picnic and some open air theatre.  Essentially the key to it was that these activities actively discouraged the participation of small children, what with their requirement to pay attention to something for more than a few seconds without shouting, screaming or getting bored.

Now, when selecting a destination there are only two things that are essential: 1. a cafe serving child friendly food, for which read chips and anything in breadcrumbs and 2. a play area, or preferably two, one indoors and one outdoors, so you are covered for all weather eventualities. Other than that I'm easy.

PACK HEAVY

If I am going out for the day I need a phone, keys, money and a pair of sunglasses. If I am going out for the day with my sons I need the aforementioned trailer load of food, wipes, suncream, bottles of water all round, a change of clothes or two, towels if we are likely to go anywhere near water, toys, aforementioned entertainment devices and yes, more food. It is better than when they were tiny and you had to add a buggy, nappies, milk and several more changes of clothes to that list, but still getting the boys out of the house is like a military exercise and I still always find I have forgot the one crucial thing I really need.

BE PREPARED

By this I am not referring to the previous point, instead I mean you need to prepare for your return. This is very simple. Make sure that you have a chilled bottle of white resting in the fridge, ready to be cracked open the second your children have been herded into bed. After the first glass or two the post traumatic stress following a family outing starts to fade and blur into a false memory of a lovely day out. This can be the only explanation as to why we are sure to put ourselves through it again next school holiday.