To the Man I Love, Frustratedly

Dear Jamie Oliver,

We both know I love you. I love what you stand for, I love how passionate you are about health and nutrition, I love what you’ve done for kids with your Fifteen restaurants, I love your floppy hair and your lispy accent, and meeting you was divine.

However. If you are going to write cookbooks, you are going to have to remember that they are often used by people learning cooking. And therefore you are going to have to remember to teach them things.

Getting leeks “cleaned and chopped” does not begin to describe the proper process of handling the giant stalky thing – paring off the leaves, slicing off the root, opening it up, washing it carefully, and then chopping it whilst sobbing like I’m watching “Coming Home“. Thankfully, Mark Bittman and his excellent How to Cook Everything, which I cling to as to a life preserver, set me straight. But it’s no fair making me need instructions for instructions, Jamie.

Also, when you jauntily suggest using a regular blender if I don’t have an immersion blender, you may wish to specify things like how I’ll want to fill it less than halfway.

I’d write more, but I have to clean asparagus soup off my walls. Delicious asparagus soup, it is true, but still.

Sending love to Jools, Daisy, Poppy, Petal and Buddy, and off to buy an immersion blender, I am,

Still yours (we both knew that),
Sarah