Write What You Know (You Can Get Away With)

So, just pop it into a preheated oven and cook at gas mark 7 for an hour.

That’s what I’d do to cookery books. I appreciate that book-burning on such a grand scale is frowned upon in polite circles, but I don’t really move in polite circles so I’m not that bothered.

The fascination with reading cookery books is something I fail to grasp. The urge for freelance writers to write a cookery book makes perfect sense to me, of course, because it’s a great opportunity to cash in, but the idea of reading one, or actually applying the instructions within, just bores the tits off me. I have better things to do with my time than spend 4 hours cutting and preparing and cooking something that will be eaten in 10 minutes, probably to not much applause. That seems on a par with saving for 10 years to buy a Ferrari then wilfully driving it straight out of the showroom and into a brick wall.

Most chefs, as far as I can see, are not in terribly rude health. You can watch them over the course of their TV careers increasing in girth, extra chins forming and arms ever more outstretched to reach the frying pan as their guts push them further away from the cooker. I’m not sure we should be listening to these people or reading their misguided thoughts.

Cookery books have made us slaves to our taste buds, which have in turn made us fat. The truth is that “boring” food is better for you. Better and quicker to prepare. More time for your freelance writing, to boot.

But, hey, it is what it is. They are chefs not dieticians. It’s what they do.

However, anyone who writes a diet book who doesn’t know exactly what they’re talking about deserves to be skewered and barbecued over white-hot coals. Charlatans. First of all, they misappropriate the word “diet”. Your diet is the food you eat every day your whole life. Animals in the wild don’t go on diets. They eat what they should eat and don’t suffer the ills that we do.

I watched a diet programme on TV the other day and this multi-chinned wobbly woman appeared on my screen. My obvious first thought was that she would start talking about her lifelong struggle with food and how she needed help. Then a caption appeared, giving her name and profession: dietician. What the …? Either she knew her stuff but was too stupid to practice it, or she didn’t know her fat arse from her flabby elbow. Either way, I’m not sure who could have given her any credence. That would be like taking self-defence advice from a guy who you’d just seen have the crap kicked out of him by a 5-year-old girl.

I expect she’s written a book. The dietician not the little girl.

There is a lesson here for all you budding freelance writers out there. The old axiom to write what you know does not necessarily apply. If you are appealing to greedy people or desperate people who have been greedy and now want to be appear less greedy as their summer holiday swimwear nears its annual appearance, then you can pretty much write anything you like.

Anyway, please check out my latest offering on Amazon: The Grilled Butterfly Wing Diet: How To Lose A Stone a Week Until You Die of Malnutrition.

I would sign it for you but I don’t have the strength to pick up a pen.