Family room

Carol O’Callaghan wonders about the reality of aspiring to the visions of domestic perfection we see on cooking channels

SLOUCHING on the sofa with a friend, glass of wine in hand while watching the cooking channels is such a simple pleasure to carry one away from roasted-on grease that calls out from the overloaded kitchen sink into the land of domestic perfection these channels offer.

One programme does it in highly aspirational fashion, that of the supreme goddess of the kitchen, America’s own Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. She of the cholesterol inducing recipes riddled with sticks of butter, heavy cream and powdered sugar which, of course, are not as unhealthy as pounds of butter or double cream or icing sugar because they sound different in American-ese and therefore are not the same thing. A bit like spending foreign currency when on holiday — it’s not like real money.