Don't do it, Delia

THE signs were all there last Easter if anyone cared to look. Delia Smith, the woman who really did teach grandmothers to cook eggs, was heading for a culinary melt down.

Her diary entry, published on her website www.deliaonline.com, showed clearly the way her thoughts were taking her.

"Sorry no diary of late, but no time," she wrote. "Odd really, because you would have thought that now the book and TV series are well and truly put to bed, it would now be get-a-life time. Alas not so - running a catering company, having a website needing a constant flow of spanking new recipes and a magazine needing the same is, I fear, never going to leave me be for long. I dream of movies, theatres, concerts, leisurely breaks, time to read books and listen to Radio 3 and 4, but it is not yet to be."

Now, however, after 30 years of presenting TV cookery shows and writing a whole rainforest full of books, Delia has admitted she is "reciped out" and has decided to hang up her apron. Perhaps she will now have time to see a flick, read the latest Jackie Collins and tune in to The Archers.

Perhaps not. The queen of cuisine is not casting aside her crown in favour of a life of leisure; she wants to devote herself to her beloved football club, Norwich City.

The phrase "out of the frying pan and into the fire" seems uncannily apt. The Canaries might be doing well and pushing hard for a play-off place in Division One, but football is a fickle game. Something Delia knows only too well, if her diary is anything to go by.

"You can't sit down, face up to and sort out football," she said, as last season was drawing to a close. "It can't ever be sorted. After a good win you might get sorted for 24 or even 48 hours, but if the team below you wins on Sunday or Tuesday evening you're right back up the gum tree again, biting your nails and reaching out for some hot toasted crumpets dripping with butter and spread with home-made preserve. How else can you cope with what I call the slings and arrows of outrageous football?"

Never mind coping with footie, Delia, how are we going to cope without you? Who is going to tell us how to boil an egg or poach a pear? And how will fans survive without their regular serving of Smith?

Ida Mary Goodrick, of Woodlands Avenue, Tadcaster, is a regular Evening Press letter writer and Delia fan. She says she will miss her heroine's "no frills, no fuss" style of cooking.

"Towards the end she started using modern gadgets that I wouldn't give house room to, but I still enjoyed her basic recipes," she said. "There was nothing fancy about her.

"I just don't understand some of the fancier chefs. I never watch their programmes because if you ask me, there's no nourishment in them. I love old fashioned baking; bread, cakes and pastry, that sort of thing. Delia is the only one who seems to do that any more.

"I'm not a TV fan myself, but I have always watched her. I know she got a lot of stick from people for being too basic, but it's not everybody who can do a decent boiled egg, you know. I'll miss her, I really will."

York chef James Lowe, who owns Villa Italia, admits to dipping into Delia's Complete Cookery Course every now and again. "If you want to know how long a beef joint needs to be cooked, you check with Delia," he said. "Chefs look in books all the time - cooking is all about re-inventing the wheel - and for basic information, she really is the best.

"She has taught people how to cook again. No home is complete without a Delia. She cooks like your mum, or at least how you would like your mum to cook, and she tells it to you straight. You can't really ask for more.

"To be honest I don't think we have seen the last of her. She's an institution and we need her. Fashions change in food like everything else. At the moment, we are turning back to basics and are looking for simple food cooked really well. If Delia doesn't champion basic food, who will?"

John Benson-Smith, chef patron at Hazlewood Castle, near Tadcaster, and catering consultant at the City of Manchester Stadium - soon to be home to Manchester City - is also a closet Delia fan, although he doesn't own any of her books.

"She's a very realistic, very cupboard-friendly cook," he said. "She's not a chef, she's a cook, one who has done an awful lot for home cooking over the years.

"I really admire what she has done at Norwich City. Anyone who takes on a job like that, catering for the masses and not just for the elite, deserves high praise.

"She will be missed on television, but I'm sure somebody will be clever enough to find someone to fill her shoes. I certainly hope so - I'm getting fed up of TV chefs being better at reading cue cards than cooking."

Updated: 16:38 Friday, January 24, 2003