Run Jamie, scoot Nigella - Delia's back!

She quit six years back saying she couldn't stand the cult of the showoffy chef. Hooked on jolly Jamie and juicy Nigella, we barely said goodbye.

Mrs Smith was not a moped gal and could not be imagined without a bra, not even in a Women's Institute calendar. Her English restraint and the unbelievably orderly kitchen were history.

Her absence has increased her value tenfold. We are so, so tired of histrionic cooks who turn the making of food into acts of sex and violence. Delia doesn't do lewd licking tongues and "entertaining" abuse.

Her recipes always work. The same cannot be said of our current star chefs and the instructions they deliver with such aplomb.

I have chucked out dishes that never fulfilled their promise, not because I didn't bother to follow all the steps, but because I did: the recipe was flawed.

Imagine how upsetting these failures must be for people who are not confident in the first place or for the millions who have little money to waste.

Some books are simply made for drooling over and should say so on the cover: Warning: Don't Try These At Home. Ask couples which recipe books they open most in the kitchen and women almost always mention Delia. Their men confess to being more into Nigella's sumptuous books and looks.

I couldn't make much real grub until I was 23 and married. Under the empire we had been taught to make sausage rolls and Victoria sponges; I had learned how to roll chapattis and to boil rice, hardly a repertoire. Dead broke, I was an undomesticated-postgraduate student. This was the sorry Seventies, when US junk food was changing the eating habits of this country for ever.

Two eminently sensible women helped me become adept and adventurous in the kitchen. One was my mum, who talked me through easy Indian recipes over the phone; the other was Delia. You could find all you needed in her compact brown volumes. Everything was clear and in simple English. I confess I did once criticise her for the way she presented herself as an expert on non-European food - but that was my only gripe ever.

Now she can tend to the next generation of nervy young things and bring them along. The frenzy and kitsch of today's TV kitchens has left them a mess. They need calm, always Delia's special, secret ingredient. Welcome back, Mrs Smith.