Lucky dip - happy days and not so happy days with Jamie Oliver

Well I think he's still happy but his businesses have had their ups and downs. This year the Jamie's Italian franchise went into receivership or something similar, and he's had other problems here and there with his various businesses - mostly the restaurants I think, so maybe not a super businessman - or maybe he's just spread himself too thin.

On the home front though all is well. Well I think so anyway. Why am I focussing on this?

Well the book I chose as my lucky dip was Happy Days with the Naked Chef, his third book written just after his marriage to Jools way back in 2001. He is now the father of five children and in his late forties. His first child, Poppy - born somewhat after the publication of this book is now sixteen. The baby is now one.

What a lot of changes in a few years. His enthusiasm and loyalty to the same group of friends and his family, doesn't seem to alter though, which, of course, is one of the endearing things about him.

For a while there he seemed to have put on a lot of weight, but these days he seems to have lost it again. In fact I think he may even have been diagnosed as a diabetic, or coeliac or something at one point. Putting on weight, after all is not a good look for someone who has been preaching healthy eating for all of his media life. But I've talked about Jamie before so I won't repeat myself too much, other than to note that we were all young once. And doesn't he look young in these photos?

What is good about the lucky dip thing is that it reacquaints me with books that I haven't looked at in ages. And when I flicked through it I kicked myself for there were a few recipes that would have been extremely relevant to some of my recent blogs. Never mind - I can make the dishes anyway. And there were many more that were tempting as well.

But the main point I want to make in this particular blog is to highlight a couple of things that he said in his introduction and elsewhere in a couple of chapter introductions. Here they are.

"After nine years of Jools hating everything about cooking I realised recently that I was being too honest about her attempts - no matter how I put it, she considered it a bit of a knockback, so I lied and said 'it's fantastic babe!' to whatever she cooked for me. Since then she hasn't stopped cooking and has naturally got better and better. She now doesn't mind discussing the finer details and she's doing cooking at home. Everyone likes to feel that they're good at something and cooking is no exception. I do find Jools' opinion massively helpful in writing a book which be accessible to everyone because if she can do it, so can you."

I assume this was run by the said Jools, because he's still marginally putting her down here - but he does have a good point about the criticism thing. We all like to feel good.

And on cooking with kids - yes - with not for.

"Getting your kids involved with food is definitely the way forward for cooking in this country. Shopping for the best ingredients then cooking and eating good quality food with them is so important. Get your kids interested in all aspects of food - as well as being fun it can also be an education for them. ... I'd like to think that kids can certainly get involved in some way in every single recipe in this book - obviously things like hot caramel, pans and sharp knives ar no-nos for your bambinos, but there will always be little jobs that they can do. ... Cooking with your kids is not about making smiley faces on pizzas or baking hedgehog cookies and disguising food. It's about smelling, touching, creating, tasting, laughing and eating."

I fear I wasn't very good with this as a mum myself. I was impatient and tended to do it all myself. I feel really bad about that. Though they must have watched a fair bit because they are both good cooks now. So take them shopping with you. Let them choose fresh fruit and vegetables - if necessary tell them how. Let them choose other things, and, again, show them what to look out for. Let them help with the preparation - everyone loves to stir and taste stuff. Let them choose what you cook - perhaps give them a recipe book to look through and let them make a choice.

So there you go - Jamie Oliver - a man on several missions, some successful, some not, some ongoing, who has made mistakes along the way but still seems to have the same enthusiasm as he had back then. He has shown us that no-one is perfect but that we can all learn from our mistakes. Go Jamie.

Besides he's from Essex - as am I!