Having lived for over twenty years in Cairo, where home cooking was the norm, on returning to the UK I gave in to the temptation to try out quite a few of the ready meals that I came across in the supermarkets. I was often short of time, and that was my excuse for not going overboard on home cooking.
I did think it might be useful to have a recipe book just in case, and bought The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book for as little as one pound as part of an introductory offer when I joined a book club. It went up on the top shelf of the bookcase, and there it stayed until I thought I would check its advice on roasting the Christmas turkey.
