Those lights, they ramp the pressure up,

I know that cameras catch my every move,

Hands shaking as I chop I try my best

To imagine that I’m in my kitchen home

Where an Aga sings all day, heating air

Cold with winter snow and ice.

The studio is sunny, painted white

To make it bigger on the screen, but now

It feels so clinical, like judges may

Want to kill or operate on me.

I’m making fancy stuff today;

Impress them’s what they said,

They want to see the fiddly stuff,

Not the one pot dish that nana taught

When you were just a little girl.

Those casseroles and meaty stews are not

What they want to see, so make a roux

And add a strawberry coulis too,

With warmth of ginger mixed with saffron,

Rice that’s flavoured with a coconut;

Knock them out with taste explosions,

Bamboozle those at home with words

That none will understand, and with a smear

Of chocolate sauce spread artfully,

I’ll fool the world and make them think

I have a flipping clue!