I’m stuck in a food rut – my cooking is unfashionable and lazy

I have fewer than 10 go-to dishes that I can make with any confidence, and they’ve been the same 10 dishes for at least a decade, writes Jenny Eclair

This year, I’m going to drag my cooking into 2022 (Getty)

Whilst so much controversy rages right now, what with debate around a statue by the paedophile artist Eric Gill, the no-longer-HRH Prince Andrew and the appalling No 10 lockdown parties, it’s quite nice to come to a definite conclusion about something that is totally unimportant.

So here goes: I am stuck in a food rut. Obviously, I know I’m lucky to have food to put on my plate – that goes without saying – but I keep putting the same food on my plate and I’m bored of it.

As I creep further into my sixties, I realise that it has been many years since I experimented with any new recipes, and my culinary habits have slipped into some kind of late-20th-century time warp. To be honest, I still cook like a student. My problem is that I’m a lazy and reluctant cook, with a partner who couldn’t care less if he ate tinned sausages and spaghetti hoops for the rest of his life.