Cooking with the king of the quick fix In this month of resolutions, there must be a few of you out there who have resolved once and for all to ditch the ready-meals and learn to cook. I wonder how many have been spurred to do it by the Californian guru Tim Ferriss, king of the quick fix. Ferriss's new book, The 4-Hour Chef (New Harvest, £21.99) promises to make you a world-class cook in under six months (and lose body fat along the way). He claims you can compress half a year of culinary school into 48 hours and learn to make '14 strategically chosen meals' in just four hours. Ferriss's bonkers theory of 'meta-learning' was first shared in The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich. Next came The 4-Hour Body, a slow-carb diet book (in a nutshell: at pulses as well as protein and shun fruit). And now cooking. On the face of it, Ferriss is not the ideal teacher, since he has spent 34 of his 35 years specifically avoiding cooking. But his hope is that he can use his former fear of recipes to all our advantage. Most cookbooks fail, he suggests, because they require too many ingredients and too many tools (hence too much washing-up). He also thinks readers are put off by the way cookbooks are organised: 'Who's going to cook six chicken dishes in a row?' Ferriss himself jumps right in with a lamb shanks recipe (Osso 'Buko'), which he describes with typical hyperbole as 'one of the most expensive menu items in the world' (huh?). He moves on to mashed cauliflower, 'Sexy-Time Steak' (he's assuming that seduction will be one of your main motivations for cooking) and a rather delicious sautéed courgette dish with garlic, chilli and lemon. The idea is that each recipe will teach a total novice a new set of skills - as well as adding another dish to his or her repertoire. To my surprise, I find the early chapters appealing. I like the way we're gently taken through knife skills and given some instant winners, such as steamed chicken with ginger and tamari. Ferriss's experience as a kitchen refusenik gives him insights into just how intimidating cooking can be when you are starting out. But doubts kicked in when he told me to take the AeroPress - my favourite coffee gadget - and use it upside-down. 'Nutella powder' made from maltodextrin and spherified mojito bubbles didn't strike me as things that would make cooking easier. The real low point was the hunting section, with advice on buying a $900 Remington Magnum gun and graphic instructions on eviscerating a deer, destined for a venison burger. This from a man who finds the tools in normal cookbooks excessive! Ferriss is surely right that, equipped with the right recipes, you can learn lots quickly. But there are some things only time can teach. After many repetitions, muscle memory moves your hands automatically to fold egg whites or chop an onion. A veteran cook knows instinctively when something's going to burn and when it needs just a few seconds longer; when to add an extra squeeze of lemon and when to leave well alone. So, make this the year you start to cook. Just don't expect to be finished in four hours.