Cooking is what turns me on. If you’ve got a problem with that, read on...

We all gotta eat, right? Some eat more than others and look like their own fridge; others don’t eat enough and look like a thermometer. Don’t believe me? Give an anorexic a glass of red wine and see what happens.

So, food is the E to the sensual in essential - and I love messing with that.

My mum – gawd bless’er, got me into the proverbial cooking pot. She was a good cook was my mum, but she hated it. Dunno why. She just loathed being in the kitchen, chopping and stirring and mincing and mashing...it was a bore of a chore. Then, in that clichéd moment, the light came on; I wanted to cook. My pathetic prepubescent voice squirted out, “Mum, will you teach me to peel potatoes?” And that was it. The peeling was appealing, the chopping and cutting was carnal; the stirring was, well, stirring and the mincing was good practice for my foray into the gay scene. I was a cook.

My mum, gawd bless’er, taught me well. She was patient and her instructions were clear. She would’ve made a good teacher, would my mum. We used to have bubble & squeak on Mondays using the leftovers from Sunday’s roast. It was basic fare but hey, it was fun to prepare and tasty. I got to prepare all sorts of things using leftovers. I’d make casseroles and pies and shove the remains of the roast through the hand mincer and get lots of meaty worms that went into shepherd’s pie and cottage pie. I got good at it. I could’ve done junior masterchef or some other twatty programme like that except there were none of those juvenile chef programmes in my day, oh no. We grew up all pythonesque playing with shoe boxes in the middle of the road; making tin can & string telephones and riding bikes till there was not enough skin on yer knees to cover the bone. And we was safe. Anyway, that’s another blog all that youth stuff and that. I’m on about cooking.

We didn’t hate school dinners did my generation; we put up with them. They were free and it was a part of life - an accepted norm. They were what they were and even when cabbage was not on the menu, the bit of the school where they had the kitchens still stank of boiled-to-death cabbage. Never, understood the science behind that one? It was fish and chips on Friday; smell = boiled cabbage. And it was universal in the all-encompassing world of primary/comprehensive education. Every school was the same. Never understood the science behind that one. An army of boffins could’ve spent 10 years trying to perfect such a uniformly repulsive smell and not managed. Perhaps it goes deeper than that; perhaps it was nature’s way of warning us that this stuff was not necessarily good? We was being skunked.

Our curriculum at school had what they called, options. You could opt for this or that in as comprehensive way as comprehensive education would allow. Being a fella my given option was technical drawing while the girls got cookery, or as it was timetabled, home econmics. I objected. I opted for home economics, which raised a few eyebrows and no doubt caused a few after-hours meetings of the school curricula planning committee. They relented. It’s on the timetable at the same time. There’s no reason why this fair innocent child may not opt for home economics. Poof!

Yep. I was seen as a girl. The first boy ever to opt for home economics in the school’s history. And I loved it.

I was pampered rotten by the teacher. I was her new novelty play thing. She’d had so many years of tantrums and tears and fashions in hair-dos and junior bras for developing young breasts and suddenly found herself with young dick. Woo-hoo! My pastry came out perfect and my Scotch eggs were firm and youthfully well developed. I had great fun. It was creative. While my peers on the other side of the quadrangle we sharpening their H1s drawing lovely straight lines to meet up with other straight lines, I was messing with flour, eggs and water and turning them into something simple and delicious.

At school one day the stinking-cabbage kitchen came up with cheese onion & potato pie; for a school lunch, it was delicious and spoke reams about simplicity. The head cook gave me the recipe and I tried it at home. Wow! I still make it today and if you're still with me, here it is:

1 kg potatoes peeled and chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 tsp English mustard powder
pepper to taste
warm milk/single cream
butter
125g grated strong Cheddar cheese
sliced tomato for garnish (optional)

Place the potatoes and onions in lightly salted water and boil. Once the potatoes are done, drain reserving some of the onion water. Mash the potatoes and onions adding the mustard powder, pepper, milk or cream and butter until you have a good looking mash. Add the grated Cheddar and stir until dissolved. If the mixture looks a little dry/stiff, add some of the reserved onion water. Place mixture in a lightly greased oven dish and sprinkle on the remainder of the Cheddar. At this point you can also decorate with sliced tomato to add colour. Bake in a hot oven (180C) for 40 minutes or until the Cheddar has browned and bubbled.

It's a meal in itself is this one and you can have it with any veg. I've found if you just have it with cauliflower it looks a bit bland on the plate as the colours are similar, so use a veg that contrasts in colour. It also goes great with grilled pork chops, sausages, etc. And if you want to be a little more adventurous, try adding crunchy bacon bits or flaked white fish to the mash before baking - be creative.You can mess with any of the quantities without destroying it; add more mustard - go crazy and add wasabi powder, cos that's what I do. Add more cheese or a different variety. Use creme fraiche instead of cream. Just give it a go....It's a very versatile and forgiving dish and very hard to screw up. I've messed about with this one for nearly forty years.

At home I became the weekday provider of evening meals. Sunday was the traditional roast where my dad put on his pinny and produced tantalisingly good fare. And I'm pleased to say, he still does. Good on yer, dad.

So, thanks mum, gawd bless'er, for giving me my love of cooking. If it wasn't for her splendid lack of enthusiasm, may be I wouldn't have made the leap from street to kitchen. My brother's a cooking nut, too. He and his wife spend most of their precious weekends beavering round markets looking for quality ingredients and turning out some amazing stuff. So it ain't hard to cook but like anything, you do need the Oomph! The spark of enthusiasm.

It's Saturday afternoon in Bangkok and my thoughts are turning foody. I've no idea what I'll knock out this evening; I could go with the flow or I could go out into Bangkok night and let my taste buds lead me astray. Hmmm....astry sounds good.