Delia opts for soccer over cookery
Delia Smith has revealed she is quitting the cookery business to concentrate on her first love – football.
The woman who has spent the last 30 years teaching how to cook said she will never do another book or TV show because she is “reciped out”.
In a move which is set to disappoint her millions of fans, she now intends to devote her time to her beloved Norwich City Football Club, nicknamed the Canaries.
Explaining her decision to quit, Smith told the Evening Standard she had simply run out of recipe ideas.
“I did How To Cook 2 and I just cannot think of any more recipes right now.
“I’ve been doing it for 30 years and I’ve had enough.
“I’m 60 and I’ve decided to do something else with my life and that thing is this,” she said of the club, of which she is a director.
“No more television or books. This football club and these people are my life and I’m having fun and I’m now devoting myself to Norwich Football Club and that’s it.”
Smith also admitted that she rarely cooks a meal for herself – and if she does it is likely to be cheese on toast with Branston pickle.
Nor does she particularly like eating out, revealing that a job as a restaurant reviewer would be her idea of hell.
She may have become a household name thanks to her TV series, but Delia complained that there are now too many celebrity chefs around.
“What’s happened to the amateur cook in the country house? Or that lady down the pub who only the locals knew about and who cooked up a storm?
“Now everyone wants to be on TV. The bubble will burst, I know it will,” she said.
Smith is one of the nation’s best-loved cooks, selling more than 10 million copies of her books over the years.
Any product she recommends in her How To Cook TV series flies off the shelves - when she extolled the virtues of an omelette pan, the manufacturers had to take on 15 extra staff to cope with demand.
Smith’s love for Norwich City began in 1969 when her husband, Michael Wynn-Jones, took her to a game.
In the 1990s they took up places on the board and since then she has taken over running of the club’s catering, including the introduction of an upmarket restaurant.
She is so devoted to the club that she recently cut short a holiday in Provence and flew back by private jet just to watch Norwich play Sunderland.
Although she claims to have given up writing recipes, Delia fans should not despair.
Four new books, repackaging many of her classic recipes, will be published in the autumn.
