Can a chef teach me to cook over Zoom?

We cannot bear more drive-through or take-out or near-fatal snack. I am convinced of the boredom of my female ancestors, which is another truth pandemic threw out, and eventually all gags run out to dust. I am happy to leave my review of Penzance McDonald’s where it belongs, which is unwritten. Food is love after all; or it should be.

So I email Ollie Dabbous, formerly of Dabbous, now of Michelin-starred Hide and the most gifted chef working in Britain today. His food looks exquisite but — and this is unusual — it tastes better than it looks. He says he will give me a cooking lesson on Zoom from the kitchens at Hide. He sends over menus. We will have pistou soup — a vegetable soup with pesto — and clafoutis, a French pudding with summer berries, sugar and alcohol.

I have a happy day shopping for unwaxed lemons, for blueberries, raspberries and cherries, for radishes, for carrots, for vermouth, for sage.

I rise early and make pesto, which is simple, if you have good parmesan (Newlyn Cheese and Charcuterie has been open throughout lockdown). I wash vegetables for the pistou soup. I fret about the internet connection. I wash cherries.

At noon Dabbous appears on the screen. Like many gifted, self-made men (he learned to cook at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, where I spent my student loan, and the Fat Duck at Bray), he is open-hearted and kindly. I cannot imagine him screaming at ghosts like Gordon Ramsay, and his food is the better for it.

He is aghast when I tell him we regulate the temperature of the Aga by opening and closing the lids and moving the food around in the oven. I was proud of the Aga until I met Dabbous. Now I realise I am riding a donkey.