There is only one thing more stressful than cooking with a raging deep-fat fryer: cooking with a raging deep-fat fryer while being watched by Gregg Wallace, John Torode and three TV cameras. I attempt to look nonchalant as I shake the basket filled with crispy spare ribs, while reminding myself that this extremely testing situation is all my own stupid fault. A year ago, I came across my neighbour David Ambler, the executive producer of the MasterChef franchise, in our local park. What viewers would really love to see, I said casually, is the critics cooking off against each other.
And now here we are, some months later, doing exactly that. To my right is my Guardian colleague Grace Dent, hair up, head down, prepping her favourite high street curry house dish. Behind her is William Sitwell of the Telegraph making chicken kyiv. Further down the room is Leyla Kazim, of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, constructing a Turkish Cypriot dish of pasta and labneh, and next to her is Jimi Famurewa of the London Evening Standard, knocking up his homemade fish finger sandwiches.
