Loose Women star Stacey Solomon couldn’t believe it when she learned on Instagram her new husband Joe Swash is bringing out his cookery book at the same time as her new book – and he’d never told her.
The couple, who tied the knot in July after seven years together, will be competing for readers’ cash next month and in the run up to Christmas.
Stacey’s release, called Tap to Tidy at Pickle Cottage about how to build the perfect home, aims to give people the confidence “to make your space the home of your dreams”, according to Amazon. It came out on September 29.
Actor Joe, although not known for his culinary talent, landed a lucrative deal with Harper Collins for his book ‘Joe’s Kitchen” which is described as “Homemade meals for a happy family from Celebrity MasterChef finalist Joe Swash”.
His book is out on October 13.
Stacey groaned on the Parenting Hell podcast: “He has got a cookbook out. He’s so funny, because he doesn’t tell me anything and then he’ll post on Instagram ‘I’ve got a cookbook out.’
“I’m like ‘Babe, you could have told me?’ And he’s like ‘oh, yeah’.”
She said her book was “like a DIY version of a cookbook”.
And it’s not DIY queen Solomon’s only complaint about her new husband as she says he epitomises a new generation of men who are “just as useless” at DIY as women, “if not more”.
Speaking on the Parenting Hell podcast, she said: “I think we actually live in a different generation now where men are just as useless, if not more.”
Stacey, 32, whose social media posts offering tips around her house have won her five million Instagram followers, added: “If I said to Joe ‘Can you just check the fuse off because I’m going to put the light up’, he’d be like ‘Where’s the fuse box?’ He doesn’t like it – he doesn’t enjoy it.
“He finds it really intimidating and he never really learned it growing up, whereas I was really lucky – my dad was so weird about us knowing how to do stuff.
“He was like ‘You won’t be able afford a plumber or an electrician when you’re older, you’ve got to know how to do it yourself, you can’t just call on someone’.
“So he was adamant that we all learned to do it ourselves, so really that was a great privilege to us that we had a level of education in bits and bobs around the house.
“I do think it’s funny how people think that maybe men are better at it than women.
“But I think it’s probably because it’s skewed. Even now when Zachary (her 14-year-old son) goes into school, his D&T class for like woodwork and stuff is mostly boys, and then the sewing class is mostly girls, which is just strange.
“I don’t know if it’s because they’re pushed in that direction or it’s the things that they’re consuming outside of school which makes them think they can’t do those things.
“But you do grow up with that impression ‘find a man, they’ll do it’.
“I’ve watched Joe build things from really simple flatpacks – he doesn’t get the instructions out, he pours all the screws and stuff on the floor, he doesn’t even plan how he’s going to do it, which is like the opposite way of how I’d do it.
“There will be a chair with like a leg coming out the top of it.”
