A girlfriend rang and discovering me at home on a Friday night said ‘I bet you’re baking’ and I was!     How lovely that the world sees me as an obvious candidate to fill that gaping chasm between Nigella Lawson and Mary Berry; more fairy lights than the former and not such an in-your-face sex goddess as the latter.

The occasion that had led me to re-discover the oven was the 30th birthday of the girlfriend of Useless the Younger.  She was throwing an enormous party but I am reluctant to go south of the river, even for her, so I decided to hold my own celebration.  It started out as early evening drinks but soon ballooned into dinner as these things tend to.  One guest asked for the menu in advance so he could select which wine to bring (Imagine the sophistication) so I had abandon the usual lightly disguised Indian takeaway and dream up some proper food.  I decided to go with an autumnal theme – lots of candles, harvest style wreath on the door and dried leaves scattered about the table.  Food had to tick all the au courant boxes – practically no carbs or sugar, locally sourced and organically grown – the last two not even a challenge for the Queen of the allotment.

We started with champagne – a bit obvious but people expect some traditional stuff, even at my house.  We then had the most amazing parsnip, apple and walnut soup found in an ancient Cranks cookery book.  You would have to be well over thirty to remember the restaurant. It was  just off Carnaby Street and staffed entirely by vegetarians; large women with pendulous breasts loosely swathed in Indian Muslim and stick-thin, wild-eyed, bearded men.

The main course was a tribute to my rural roots, a re-working of Stargazy Pie (You won’t have heard of it) with home grown French beans and slow roasted baby heritage tomatoes.  No kale or avocado?  How last year are you?

But the piece de resistance was what came next.  I need hardly tell you, I hope, that is is now beyond the pale to serve more than two cheeses and I presented them with a Bake Off showstopper.  A courgette, hazelnut and honey cake. Reader, it was fabulous.  I would include a photograph but the camera doesn’t exist with a shutter speed fast enough to capture it before it vanished.  How I wish I’d discovered this during the bloody courgette glut when I was hurling the wretched things out of the car window.

And what wines did we drink to accompany this feast?  God knows but there is quite an assortment of empties in the recycling and a worrying lack of content in the sloe gin bottle.

Yet another triumph then!