Do you ever do that thing where ...

... you imagine you’re interesting enough to be on the telly?

I do it all the time. It started from the earliest age, where I would hold conversations with Noel Edmonds and tell him why I’d brought on a Hammond organ and battered Welsh hat with just the one piece of ribbon on Swap Shop.

From there, a fantasy fast car would drive me to the Tiswas studios and I’d file fake papers with Sally James to prove I was an Over Eight and not an Under Eight, the age I seemed to be forever in those little days of wanting to be big (not in the way you’re thinking).

Perhaps the Phantom Flan Flinger would persuade me to sing a song while being doused with water, baked beans and custard, getting the words out while I did that thing which everyone seemed to do – carry on while making a big show of flinging said flung stuff out of my eyes and blowing the remnants of pink goo out of my mouth (not without having a sneaky taste first, just in case it was blancmange).

If I was on This Is Your Life, Eamonn Andrews would allow animals on for the first time in the show’s history. Sat next to me would be Tudor the dog, Shortie the Shetland Pony and Head Like A Football, my black cat with a head like a, well, football.

I’m not sure if I’ve grown out of this metaphysical sideline of mine, as on the weekend I was watching The Taste of My Life.

By the time it had finished, and Nigel Slater was cooking Griff Rhys Jones something with eels, crabs and other fishy fodder, I’d been filmed stuffing my face with a chicken dinner, making a corned beef roll and doing “frothy coffee” in the microwave.

In case you haven’t seen it, The Taste Of My Life’s premise is essentially a very simple one. Slater gets to talk to a celeb, makes some of their favourite dishes, and by the magic of oil, nuts, refined flour and fancy white plates, he works out what type of person they are and narrates their biography in light of it.

Who knew eels could be so interesting and tell Slater our lad had been to Oxford? I guess kebab and chips may signify my alma mater, Cardiff University (onions, just to remind me to cry again, speaking of my Cambridge rejection letter).

Griff, posh paws that he is, so freakily health minded he hasn’t had any kind of carbohydrate for five years, was banging on about smoked haddock omelettes, shoulder of lamb, sushi, pumpkin soup and crab in the story of his culinary life.

I guess for a foodie-cum- cook like Slater, it made for an interesting menu.

On that basis, I fear that if he came round my house to relive my misshaped past, he’d have a heart attack. Or die of pre-packaged, deep frosted boredom.

What would he make of me in relation to my history of food choices and faves?

There’s nothing fancy in there, no unusual delicacies, no restaurant quality cooking.

My favourite meal is my mother’s chicken Sunday dinner – home-made gravy (no stock cube as I can taste it through doors), Yorkshire puddings, swede and potato mash, Birds Eye peas, chopped up cauliflower, mint sauce (not garden fresh, but the bottled stuff). Very specific.

Then there’s Hiya Love’s lasagne or his concoction of chicken breasts (ALWAYS boneless and skinless) stuffed with smoked bacon (all traces of fat cut off), topped with mozzarella (kind of fancy I guess) done in a red wine and garlic sauce combo.

I love a basic pizza, dipping the crusts in garlic mayonnaise if I’m lucky and nobody’s looking, steak well done (one drip of red and I’m done for) on the barbecue and perhaps a simple chicken salad (see above instructions), freshly baked bread and strawberry jam (without the bits in), followed by school-made chocolate pudding and white custard. Again, god’s in the details of the finish.

That’s it. Not much is there?

I’d like to think that maybe my choices say that I’m just a normal girl who sometimes gets tied up in specifics, someone with traditional tastes who simply knows what she likes.

(Or should that really be likes what she knows? Maybe that’s at the heart of it.)

And if lack of eels, crabs and lamb shank puts me in the dullard corner and makes me the culinary equivalent of watching paint dry, I’m not all that bothered.

Because you always have time for a fried egg and red sauce sandwich (crispy on the one side, bread lightly toasted) before even considering starting to gloss the skirting boards.