What do you want for supper tonight,” I said dejectedly, staring at the rain through the car window on the way home from school pick up.

“Steak with a peppercorn sauce and hand-cut chips would be nice,” said my 12 year-old son... nonchalantly.

Wouldn’t it just! And as I prepared beans on toast, again, I wondered what kind of foodie monsters I’ve created?

Me thinks it must be in the genes, flowing through my bloodstream like custard onto a crumble or gravy on a roast. Because my own obsession with food began early on, but was exacerbated by a despairing sewing teacher who, when trying to untangle my sewing machine for the umpteenth time and viewing my scrumpled bit of material with pity, suggested gently that perhaps home economics might be more my style.

It was and has been ever since. And my children have inherited a similar bug, not just for cooking but for food appreciation, although it does keep getting us into terrible trouble. Little kids don’t have any filters you see so last week, during a review, when the waitress asked my six your-old daughter how her food was, she replied: “My lasagna isn’t nearly as good as the one my mum makes.”

She was right actually but even so. My son, when asked where his favourite restaurant in Oxford was, paused and said, before I could gag him, “probably Le Manoir,” like Little Lord Fauntleroy, without the title, the cash, the breaches or the plummy tones.

It was my youngest who put it most succinctly though while ordering pizza, when she told some poor unfortunate waitress: “I’m not being fussy, I just know how I like it,” and who am I to argue? I make a living out of it.