Do you know one of things J and I do to relax? We put on episodes of Julia Child and Jacques Pepin to watch on TV. If we think we’ve seen them a bit too often, we put on some Rick Stein just to mix things up a bit. And we’re even warming to Jamie Oliver. You can safely say we like food. But if there’s one thing I’m getting a bit too much of, it’s the stupid pronouncements of every celebrity “chef” out there.

Bear in mind, that I love/adore cooking, and have done for more than 2 decades. We have hundreds of cookbooks on our bookshelves. I can watch an episode of “Iron Chef” and criticise them because they didn’t remove the pistils from courgette flowers before frying them, or because they believe pizza pie originated in Italy.

So, as an exercise, let’s see if you can spot this incidence of repetitive inanity.

Did you know that the traditional cuisine of northern Italy depends on fresh ingredients, sourced locally? And that the traditional cuisine of China depends on fresh ingredients, sourced locally? How about the traditional cuisine of Mexico? Fresh ingredients, sourced locally. Having absorbed all that, can you tell me … what the traditional cuisines of south-east Asia depended on? Go on, give it a shot. Got it? Yep, they depended on freakin’ fresh ingredients, sourced freakin’ locally! Would never have guessed that one, Anthony Bourdain!

Is that all these people can say nowadays? Who are the vacuous clones writing this rubbish? I lift my eyebrow disdainfully as I stare at the TV screen. “So you’re saying there were no Concorde flights transporting white truffles in oil halfway across the world back in the fourteenth century, then?” With an entire region’s cooking repetoire to choose from, are the phrases “fresh ingredients” and “sourced locally” really the only things one can think of?

Because God hates me(*), I was also subjected to a dreadful series called “Sugar”, where some bimbo concocts nouveau yuppie food in an ersatz house setting that makes Ikea catalogue photos look cosy and traditional. And do you know what she said when preparing a sweet pastry base for a pie? “Prick the bottom of the pastry with a fork or it will spread when it bakes in the oven.”

I almost fell off the sofa. It will spread? We’re talking pastry here, woman, not chocolate. And, in fact, pastry has a tendency to shrink when it’s baked. Good gods! It was oh-so-obvious that this woman — who stands in front of a camera, being paid an obscene amount of money to teach people how to make the equivalent of twee canapes — had never cooked a goddamned pie in her life. Because, gentle reader, if she had, she would know that one pricks the bottom (and sides) of fresh pastry to stop layers of pastry ballooning up/out and filling the pie cavity. I know this because I’ve cooked dozens of pies and it’s happened to me. But this woman can — either through stupidity or ignorance — stand there under a cloak of authority, collect a fat fee and lie through her back teeth over, not just one but two, facts. I wouldn’t mind so much, except some newbie is going to take this piece of drivel as gospel and live a life filled with culinary falsehood. (I take food very seriously.)

I can understand that cooking programmes are chic, and that various producers are falling over themselves to come up with the next biggest name. But could somebody please think of the words they’re putting in these people’s mouths? Just to help me regain my composure, I’ll finish with one of Julia’s priceless comments:

How much garlic you add depends on how you feel about garlic

Amen, Julia. We still need people like you around.

(*) Actually, S/He doesn’t. We have a cordial agreement, God and I … I don’t bother The Supreme Being; The Supreme Being doesn’t bother me.