My first two columns may have given you the impression that I’m a grumpy old man. Well, technically I am.
But that shouldn’t be the only thing you know about me. Moaning aside, one of my other passions is food.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at my svelte figure but most of my weekends are spent with a frying pan.
I enjoy most things culinary, even the television shows of wealthy super chefs that most people find excruciatingly unbearable. I’m also interested in the debate about healthy eating and Britain’s supposed war against obesity (I’ll save that topic for a later column).
One of my greatest pleasures is discovering a new recipe, one that eventually becomes a regular in Chez Dayan.
The latest is a seafood risotto that was born out of a desire to make a simpler version of the Spanish dish, paella.
I’ve tweaked and experimented with a recipe I found in an old cookbook and now have a real cracker of a meal. It’s also one of the simplest things I make and, although I say it myself, delicious.
Italian food snobs may balk at the addition of Parmesan to seafood, but the long-suffering Mrs Dayan and I both agree that it’s an essential curtain call for a show-stopping dish.
I was intending to post the recipe in all its finery here, but thought better of it.
“What if someone doesn’t do it properly and falls foul of an undercooked mussel?” - an anxious Mrs Dayan asked me last night.
She’s right, you know. You can’t be too careful these days. I’d like nothing more than to tell you all how to construct the perfect summer pudding or the best way to make a cheese soufflé, but I simply can’t.
What if someone burnt their hand on the stove or scorched their top lip while tasting my borscht?
It doesn’t bear thinking about. The ambulance chasing no-win no-fee brigade would be knocking down my cyber door faster than you could boil an egg.
I don’t want to be too po-faced, so I am willing to depart one recipe that shouldn’t land me in too much bother.
Take two slices of bread, butter both on one side and add a layer of your favourite jam to one. Press both sides together, keeping the dry sides facing outwards. You now have a jam sandwich and I can keep clear of the long arm of the litigious law.