Rona Dougall: Lack of the cooking gene leaves me cold NIGELLA Lawson, the ultimate domestic goddess, has a new book out. According to the blurb in Nigellissima, "she conjures up, with passionate relish, the warmth, simplicity and directness of Italian cooking, with an Anglo-twist." As far as I'm concerned "direct" Italian cooking means phoning for a carry out pizza. There is, of course, the inevitable television series which starts tonight to accompany it. No doubt I will watch it sullenly, munching on a plate of toast while my husband enthuses about Nigella's skill and bountiful charms. Don't get me wrong, I like her, I think she's lovely. I think it's great that she may be a fabulous cook but that she's a bit of slattern in the house. She's the kind of woman who I heard described recently as "the type who wipes the kitchen counter with a kitten." What annoys me though is this obsession people have these days with cooking. You can't turn on the TV without being assailed with a myriad of programmes about how to cook. My husband is glued to one as I write, and the presenter has tears in his eyes because he is so moved at the deliciousness of the prawn he has just eaten. And now my other half has been well and truly bitten by the cooking bug. Everything has to have a "jus" or be "flambéed" or "marinated." He has a passion for stir-fried leafy green vegetables. It's like living with Gwyneth Paltrow and her macrobiotic neuroses (but without the enormous wealth). And the country seems just as obsessed with baking. The Great British Bake Off has been pulling in massive viewing figures, almost five million. And it's not just women who are tuning in, a record number of men are watching Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood decide which of the contestants will be crowned the UK's best amateur baker. I watched it last week solely for the purposes of research. It was as boring as, well, watching a cake rise. The only frisson of excitement was when one of the star competitors was forced to withdraw from the strudel round after slicing his finger on an electric mixer. He was led off, dripping with blood, pleading to be allowed to continue. I'm just so gutted because I really think my strudel's going to be amazing. For goodness sake, pull yourself together man, we're talking cake here. Now here's an idea - rather than creating a mountain of washing up and falling out with your children over the mess just to produce a soggy-bottomed, slightly burnt Victoria sponge, go to the shop and buy one. You may have deduced from my cynicism and bitterness that I'm not much of a cook or baker myself. When the microwave pings my poor malnourished daughters shout "tea's ready." I was proudly telling my foody friend the other day about a rather wonderful bean and sausage pie I had rustled up. She looked interested. What kind of beans did you use -cannelloni, chick pea, pinto? "Heinz," I replied. Her children have discriminating palates. They beg for risotto and steak tartare. Mine think Haribos are one of their five a day. If one more woman tells me in the school playground, that "you can't go wrong with muffins," I will scream. You can and I do. Embarrassingly, my offerings at bake sales are always the very last to go. My grandmother was a fabulous cook, as is my elder sister. She recently went on a six-month cordon bleu cookery course in Paris. It cost a fortune and all she really seemed to learn was that food tastes really good if you add lots of butter and cream to it. I could have told her that. The cooking gene appears to have bypassed my mother too. Her fridge is covered in those "funny" magnets with witticisms like "If it's not burnt it's salad." My friends are wary when they come to mine for dinner, the memories of earlier disasters still lingering in their minds. My approach to entertaining though is simple - make sure the table looks nice and ply the guests with a huge amount of drink before they sit down to eat. Usually, they're so inebriated they couldn't care less what I put in front of them. It's a sure-fire recipe for success.