Who's the Daddy: Rocking the right recipes

30 Rock is the best sitcom ever written. If anyone wants to disagree, I’ll be on the town hall steps 10 minutes after the pubs shut on Saturday.
Who's the DaddyWho's the Daddy
Who's the Daddy

The show is based around a fictitious TV comedy called TGS With Tracy Jordan, a lost-in-showbiz comedian who finally loses his tenuous grip on reality when he designs and sells a video game which crosses gaming with pornography and earns him $300m in a year.

One night Tracy’s discussing problems with his children with Kenneth the Page and says: “Those two have never paid me any attention. And rightly so, I’m a strange man who can’t be taken seriously.”

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It’s hard to empathise with someone so wealthy their idea of a good time is to buy two blimps and crash them into each other to see what sound they make, but Tracy, I feel your pain.

After a while your kids only call when they want something.

When lockdown began about 12 years ago and our daughters came home from uni and sixth form, I offered to show them how to cook a few half-decent meals from scratch that aren’t a Pot Noodle in a baguette or Lidl’s version of Shreddies in tap water. Spaghetti bolognese, chilli, a few curries. Something that they could rustle up, stick the leftovers in the fridge and have something nice for dinner in their student hovels.

I know how young adults think, I used to be one. Why should I make dinner when, if I moan for long enough, you’ll cook it and all I have to do is eat it? Touché, young ‘uns.

However, I received a panicky text message from daughter #1 from her shared house in Liverpool last week, which read: “How do you make that chilli? I’ve got the ingredients but not how to make it.”

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Dear reader, I was almost moved to tears. Oil, onions, garlic, fry up for five minutes then bung everything else in for an hour and leave on a low heat. Next night was the same. “I’ve put too much water in the curry and it’s gone all runny. What do I do now?” Keep stirring, it’ll evaporate eventually. Pour it in bit by bit next time. She even sent over a picture. Looked good enough to eat.

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