Dee - two minutes should be enough! If he has the patience ... Puir wee soul.

Jim

I find it patronising that book stores categorise literature for men and women (I love a good history book or some reading material on current affairs - somebody stop me - I rock!) I can honestly say I have never picked up a household, a baby book or a cook book and I really want to retch when I see 'Books for mums' or 'Books for men'. I saw a similar sight in Barnes and Noble New York (the one that was in Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson!!!) and they had patronising gender 'categories'. I remember seeing what looked like a Delia Smith book and it reminded me of the following:

Delia's Way
Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice-cream drips.
The Real Woman's Way
Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for God's sake. You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyway.


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Delia's Way
To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

The Real Woman's Way
Buy smash and keep it in the cupboard for up to a year.


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Delia's Way
When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking tin, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

The Real Woman's Way
Tesco sell cakes. They even do decorated versions.


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Delia's Way
If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a potato slice.

The Real Woman's Way
If you over salt a dish while you are cooking, that's tough. Please recite with me the Real Woman's motto: "I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes."


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Delia's Way
Wrap celery in aluminium foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks

The Real Woman's Way
It could keep forever. Who eats it?


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Delia's Way
Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

The Real Woman's Way
Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and drop it in 8 ounces of vodka. Drink the vodka. You might still have the headache, but you wont give a sh*t.


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Delia's Way
If you have a problem opening jars, try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.

The Real Woman's Way
Why do I have a man?


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Delia's Way
Freeze leftover wine into ice cubes for future use in casseroles

The Real Woman's Way
Left over wine???? Hello!!!!!

Gillian, LOL!!!

Love it, Gillian

sarah

Very funny ha ha not. Celery is good. Cooking is good. Eating fast food and sneering at people who cook is neither big nor clever.

I'm sure the post wasn't intended to be anything other than fun... it made me laugh and I love cooking... just not all the time. So anything that saves time or cuts corners is brilliant!

vanessa

I know - it IS funny but I have an allergy to this kind of glib, post-feminist writing, which scoffs at traditional ways. It appals me how young women don't seem to care any more about nutrition and like to brag that they can do anything with a needle except thread it. Actually, I can't sew to save my life but I always try to cook from scratch because I want totake care of the health of my kids and myself. I must sound very po-faced but as I said, this sort of attitude - funny or no - gets to me.

Seeing a Delia Smith book merely makes me reflect upon this particular piece of prose.....I'm not the author though....

I read this as a comic refusal to do what you're 'supposed' to do: a different take on the, 'When I am old I shall wear purple' and 'life's too short to stuff a mushroom' principles.

There's still enormous pressure on women to be perfect, especially when it comes to their children: often now it's interior decor, not cooking, but the pressure's the same: being adequate isn't enough, you should be be doing/wanting/spending more. Designer-scented babywipes, anyone? The old social ferocity towards women who transgress - whether in getting drunk, or not holy-stoning their doorsteps to perfection every week, or in wearing too much makeup - may have resulted in healthier livers and good gossip of the conformist door-step cleaners, but the social fall-out from such repression is not negligible. Now the transgression is in keeping the previous owner's holey carpet, or not spending half Saturday morning queuing up at the organic butcher.

As Libby Purves, sane goddess of child-rearing, puts it: 'I would willingly give up my life for my children, but I seen no need to do it every day.'

Emma

As it happens I have never opened a packet of Smash (I know, I haven't lived) and cakes are something I used to be rather good at - once upon a merry when - but I still thought it was funny.

Anyon read 'The Dud Avocado'? When the heroine is forced into cooking a meal. 'Which one is the oven and how do you switch it on?'

Lovely

Also has one of my all time favourite last sentences.

Sarah

Excellent Gillian If you find any more feel free to post it in the Comedy Forum.

I always remember Jane Asher making party cakes on a daytime TV programme - it must have been when I was pregnant, otherwise I'd never have watched it. At one point she put a brown paper bag over a child's head and picked up a pair of scissors, while talking about cutting out the eye holes. I wtched horrified, fully expecting her to jab the scissors through the bag and skewer the poor child's eyeballs.
Unfortunately she didn't but I would break into hysterical laughter for weeks afterwards - in fact I still do.

- NaomiM

No, sorry - read it again and find it even less funny. Why is it okay to laud the incompetent? This 'funny' piece sneers at people who put their intelligence to good use to solve problems. There's nothing liberating about having to ask a man to open a jar for you. I do accept it's meant to be funny but I just find it really irritating.

I think it's OK to find it irritating.

I think it's OK to find it funny.

Goodness... wouldn't life be boring if we all reacted the same?

My kid are now grown... (one is still in his teens). I was a very boring cook when they were growing up... used a lot of cutting corners. They are both wonderful, inventive healthy cooks, and I like to think I made them do that as a reaction to me!

vanessa

I find it irritating and funny all at the same time. Nothing wrong with a bit of home-cooking OR a takeway, moderation, variety, etc etc.
Back to the original question, and in this household the man reads the books on cooking and gardening and the woman reads the male novelists, so I guess it depends upon who you are.

I thought it was funny, even though I grow my own organic courgettes and make jam and feed the children spinach bake almost every Tuesday. But Delia Smith is the spawn of the devil, and mention of her requires me now to perform small magic rituals with parsley and angelica to counteract the darkly subversive power of her name on this thread. (But hey, at least Norwich lost yesterday.)

(Ignore me. It's a whole football thing.)

Rosy