Confessions of a kitchen tart

In a brilliant new column, our man in the pinny reveals how he uses food to seduce and manipulate friends and loved ones

I've never liked the word 'foodie' - perhaps because if I accept that it is genuinely descriptive of a certain type of person, then I may have to face the fact that I probably am one. And then I might have to confront some questions that those of us 'involved' with food, either professionally or as passionate amateurs, would probably rather avoid. Questions like, at what point does our interest/passion/obsession become a bore? To what extent do we let that 'food thing' eat into (you see!) other areas of our lives? Is it sane to care as much as we do about what we choose to put in our mouths?

Battling with these questions is pretty futile because if one is a foodie (gulp!), one simply doesn't have the option to backtrack. 'I think I'll stop bothering with nice food and just stoke up on rubbish, so I can concentrate on more important things in life' is not a sentence I ever expect to either speak or hear.

Nor can we prevent food from permeating pretty much all our relationships. If I'm honest, I must admit that I use my cooking skills to manipulate almost everyone I know. I love cooking for my friends, especially on their birthdays, because I believe it will earn me their undying love and loyalty. And I may be able to get away with another whole year of being petulant and self-absorbed in their presence.

I try and cook for anyone who comes to interview me, because I assume they wouldn't dare bite the hand that has literally fed them. Others for whom I would be keen to do a bit of strategic catering include my new bank manager ('Another half a partridge Mr Riggs? Go on! Now, about the overdraft...'), and whoever is currently in charge of the waiting list for moorings at West Bay Harbour ('How would it be if we dropped the 7 from 73? Lemon tart?').

Of course, the closer the relationship, the bigger the role of food in mediating it. And in foodie love and marriage, even when abilities are matched, there is never equality in the taking of responsibility - or indeed credit - for the cooking. It isn't just restaurants that have tyrannical head chefs. It's any household in the land where both people in the relationship think food matters.

So in our kitchen (which I struggle not to call my kitchen), guess who's the tyrant? Who generously offers his partner a 'choice' of what he could cook her for dinner, but in a manner transparently loaded in favour of what he has actually planned to cook all along? Who 'accidentally' puts the leftovers of the ratatouille that his partner cooked for lunch into the pig bucket, in case she suggests revisiting it at supper, for which he has other plans? And who adjusts every single ingredient in his partner's salad dressing the moment she leaves the kitchen to answer the phone. Me, me and me. In our kitchen, it's all about me.

I've noted that partners of other kitchen tyrants learn to handle the outrageous balance of power in different ways. Some become falsely modest and acquiescent: 'Me? I can't boil an egg. But luckily Tom is just a genius in the kitchen. And of course he spoils me rotten.' Others play the swings-and-roundabouts card, hinting at mighty victories in other domestic arenas: 'she does what she wants in the kitchen, but when it comes to choosing the soft furnishings, I am the undisputed king.'

But my wife Marie, to my shame and embarrassment, just tells it how it is: 'I can't do anything without him interfering. I can see the physical pain it causes him when I'm slicing courgettes to the wrong thickness, or frying onions too fast. So basically, I've pretty much given up cooking.'

But I believe (because I have to) that there is an upside for my partner in my annexing the kitchen. For example, every now and again, usually when we have just come to the end of what seemed to me a perfectly robust and satisfying supper at home, she will say: 'Mmm. That was delicious. But I think maybe I could just about manage a little chocolate souffl¿ now.'

Don't be misled by the flatting pheremonal desire. And she might even say 'Fine. It's OK', in that special way which makes it so clear that the two things it most emphatically isn't are 'fine' and 'OK'.

The urge may be biological, but my obligation to fulfil it is clearly contractual. Like that rather amusing ad on the telly at the moment, it's all in the relationship small print. I am only allowed to be a kitchen tyrant, if I can show that I can be a lovable kitchen tyrant. The price I pay for exercising obsessive control at the hob is souffl¿s on demand. He who lives by the stove, dies by the stove.

Of course I have a counter-clause, which declares: 'Hugh will receive effusive praise for every souffl¿, even if, owing to fatigue and the cavalier measurement of ingredients, it has collapsed like a punctured chocolate zeppelin. In fact, Hugh will be allowed to pretend it was meant to do that, so as to make it extra gooey and chocolatey.'

But then she gets me back with this nasty little rider: 'At no time is Hugh to claim that cooking for his family is anything other than a pleasure and a privilege; it may never be offered in lieu of his fair share of cleaning the kitchen and loading and unloading dishwasher.'

How did I ever agree to that? I mean, whenever I cook for my other family (the ones that begat me), the contract is all in my favour: 'Hugh is a complete angel for taking over the kitchen and cooking yet another wonderful meal. He is therefore entitled to relax in front of the telly while Mum and Dad do all the washing up.'

My son Oscar, three-and-a-half, is beginning to show a flair for making almost as much mess in the kitchen as his father. To my astonishment I find I am already offering him the same terms.

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