The Times - UK (2022-04-13)

2 Wednesday April 13 2022 | the times

times2

Help! The new

The government has turned dinner

with my wife into a guilt-ridden

exercise, says Michael Odell, while

Hannah Evans rues ordering the dips

M

y wife has been

working in

London all week

so, now that she’s

back in Bristol,

we’re heading

out for a date-

night meal.

There’s so much to talk about. What

did her boss say at her appraisal? Why

is our dog limping?

I’ve been really looking forward to

our cosy meal à deux. But it’s only as

the menus arrive that I realise there

are actually now three people on this

date. Me, the missus and... who’s that

nosy, unsmiling git in the corner?

That’s the government.

Since last week the Department of

Health and Social Care has made it

mandatory for calorie values to be

displayed on all restaurant menus (at

least in establishments with 250 staff

or more), effectively plonking itself

next to the condiments so it can sit

there and say, “Oooh, I wouldn’t if I

were you,” whenever I order Yorkshire

pudding or mumble, “You do realise

the NHS is under severe pressure,

don’t you, flubber cheeks?” if I so

much as glance at a chocolate brownie

with double cream and sprinkles.

There are a few exceptions to the

legislation. To wit: food served by

the armed forces to a member of

the armed forces outside a military

canteen. Great. I can avoid calorie

bullying if I eat tarte aux pommes

under rocket attack on a battlefield.

We’re heading to a branch of Côte

in Clifton Village, a very smart and

posh Georgian bit of Bristol. Usually if

I see a four-digit figure next to a main

course around here, I assume that’s

the price. It’s a shock to realise that the

1,311 next to the confit pork belly with

savoy cabbage, gratin dauphinoise

potatoes, Calvados and thyme jus is

more like a terrorist threat level. That’s

more than half my recommended

2,500 daily calorie intake.

My wife did A-level maths and she’s

loving all this. “I would suggest you

have the burger, but that’s 1,456

calories, so it’s even worse,” she says.

Yes, the “Côte burger” is a

humble-looking 7oz patty, but once

garnished with reblochon cheese,

truffle mayo and caramelised onion,

placed in a brioche bun and served

with frites, it becomes something else.

It really should be renamed “The

Widowmaker” or even, and let’s cut to

the chase here, the “F*** You, NHS”.

This new numbers game also means

that I’m not really talking to my wife.

I’m anxiously thinking back over the

day, itemising what I’ve eaten and

calculating how many more calories

I have left to “spend”. I can see I’ll

have to forgo the chocolate and

praline crêpe with caramelised

bananas and chantilly cream (756

calories) unless I plan to do an

Ironman Triathlon, then swim the

Bristol Channel on the way home.

I know, I know, we’re all getting

too fat. UK obesity levels mean that

the NHS is spending millions on

gastric bands, heart disease and

diabetes and, I dunno, tons of steel-

reinforced concrete because our fat

backsides mean we can’t even trust

the foundations of the average NHS

foundation trust any more. And we

can’t say we weren’t warned.

The government’s traffic light

warning system for unhealthy foods

came into force in 2013 and yet... all

too often I simply jumped the red light

and continued cruising down the

salted caramel with flambéd oranges

super-highway.

“Maybe you should have a paillard

salad (448),” my wife suggests. “With

a glass of wine. Or else the poulet

breton (742), but no wine, just water.

And try not to eat everything. The

government won’t have allowed for

you licking up every last globule of jus

from the plate or wiping it up with a

bread roll.”

Ouch. That hurt. But it looks as

though I’ve found a “safe space” in the

wine list. There are no calories listed

here. That does seem odd. I know for

a fact that two glasses are at least 250

calories, about the same as a slice of

pepperoni pizza. Why is it exempt?

The fact is I hate knowing the awful

truth about all things. I preferred the

prelapsarian world I grew up in, when

we only vaguely thought there might

be a problem with fags, bacon, fizzy

drinks, cars, asbestos, Jimmy Savile,

communism and airplanes.

But we now live in a world of

irrefutable data that means the health

outcomes of these things are there for

all to see. That “cheeseboard for one”

looks nice — but it’s 467 calories and

the defibrillator is too far away. I’ll

never make it.

And that’s not to say I haven’t

occasionally come across a snack that

ought to come with an air-raid siren

warning. I recently visited the burger

chain Five Guys, where I had a

cheeseburger and a large portion of

fries. Only then did I discover that

the burger contained more than 900

calories and the fries came in at an

incredible 1,300 calories. That is just

unconscionable. Waddling home, I

wondered if that’s why it’s called Five

Guys? Because that’s pretty much

what you’re going to look like after

a couple of lunches there.

At Côte we were helped by staff

who obviously didn’t work for the

government and seemed to have sided

I prefer the old

system where

I could enjoy a

reckless blowout

Wine and

fines for

Boris et al

As I write, No 10 has

said that Boris and

Carrie Johnson, along

with the chancellor,

Rishi Sunak, are

being fined by the

Metropolitan Police,

although seeing as

it is investigating 12

parties, it isn’t entirely

clear for which party

or when.

I sympathise. I

sometimes wondered

whether to break the

silence by having a

conversation with the

kettle, but imagine the

anguish in Downing

Street, with stiffies

stacking up on the

mantelpiece. Boris and

co were putting on

their party hats as well

as running the country,

and the pressure of

also having to decide

if it was white wine

or rosé must have

been intolerable.

To be fair, in

comparison with

Johnson’s general track

record as a human

being, Sunak’s fine

is like being pulled

over for doing 71mph

on the motorway when

someone went past you

half an hour ago doing

105mph, but rules are

rules. What a pity

nobody apart from us

stupid little people

followed them.

Such a comfort to know
that while I, like so
many, spent lockdown
on my own, our elected
representatives in
Downing Street were
officially having a ball.

O

ne of the loveliest
things about being
in a relationship
isn’t the big
romantic gestures
and Valentine’s
Day nonsense.
It’s the simple,
underrated joy of having someone
cook you dinner after a long day at
work. So I’m not surprised that after
a career being the nation’s pin-up in a
pinny, Delia Smith, 80, has delegated
dinner to her husband, Michael
Wynn-Jones, 81, although at their age
they could be forgiven for delegating
to Deliveroo.
Instead, Wynn-Jones has apparently
developed a love of cooking in
retirement. When he’s in the kitchen,
Smith told Radio Times, he prefers her
to stay out of the way “because I can’t
help turning the heat down or stirring”
and it drives him mad.
Delia, I hear you. If a man can’t
take kitchen advice from her, it’s
little wonder the rest of us struggle.
Every boyfriend I’ve had, which
is probably considerably more than

is wise, has had no truck with
collaboration in the kitchen.
I’ve spent hours standing side by
side in the kitchen with female friends,
companionably cooking something or
other. But men? They don’t seem to
cope well with a division of labour.
They don’t want to brown the chicken
while I chop the carrots, and they
definitely don’t want you to hint that
the sauce is about to catch.
They will graciously delegate the
clearing up, which is fair enough if
they have done the heavy lifting, but
if I’m at the helm, the kitchen halfway
through cooking looks barely messier
than it did at the start. I’m proud to
say that my habit of clearing up as I go

Hilary Rose

ALBANPIX LTD/REX

Tip trips

shouldn’t

be planned

Spring: the sap is

rising, a heatwave is

forecast, travel chaos

is guaranteed and

all sensible people’s

thoughts turn to the

tip. Nothing says new

life like getting rid of

old rubbish, and right

now visiting the tip

looks like much more

fun than leaving

the country.

Except that one of the

more irritating legacies

of Covid is having to

book, a practice the

government fears is

encouraging fly-tipping.

My local tip asks

endless tedious

questions about where

I live, how I’m getting

there and exactly

when, to the nearest

half-hour, I will arrive

before admitting that

it’s fully booked until

the end of the month,

and for all I know

indefinitely.

The website is so

remarkably rubbish —

hollow laugh — that I

couldn’t figure out how

to search beyond April.

Nothing beats the thrill

of a spontaneous trip

to the tip, and besides,

what sort of a person

schedules the tip weeks

in advance? How do

they know what they

will need to take? And

why do so many of

them apparently live

near me?

Carol Midgley is away

along won me kudos from Marcus

Wareing, no less, when I was

dispatched to write about cooking in

the MasterChef kitchen. My top tip,

learnt that day, is that if, like this

week’s winner of Mastermind, you

need to build up the courage to

Master-anything under television

lights, make it Mastermind, not

MasterChef. Sitting in a black chair in

front of lovely Clive Myrie must be

infinitely less stressful than deglazing

a pan for a Michelin-starred chef.

Anyway, while Delia didn’t go into

detail on what Mr Delia rustles up of

an evening, I’m prepared to bet that

it’s more likely to be roast chicken

than beef wellington, and so much

the better. Most recipes take far longer

to cook than you think, and rash

promises of 15-minute meals are just

that: a fantasy facilitated by armies of

assistants prepping behind the scenes.

I wouldn’t go as far as Simon

Cowell, who says he often has beans

on toast at home before going out to

a restaurant because he doesn’t like

the fancy food. Fine, but why bother

going to a restaurant at all? But hats

off to Delia for her new domestic

arrangements and good for Wynn-

Jones telling her to bog off if she

comes within spitting distance of a

spatula. Sexual chemistry’s all very

well, but in the long run, I reckon it’s

kitchen compatibility that counts.

Delia’s recipe for a

happy relationship?

Stay out of the kitchen

Every boyfriend

I’ve had has had

no truck with

collaboration