THE average Joe arrives home from work starving and strung out, and attempts to conjure up a makeshift Welsh rarebit out of dehydrated shards of cheddar while wishing his eggs had best fore dates stamped on them.
The luckier Joe rings up for a take away. Not so, Hugo Arnold, whose first book, Simple Suppers: After Work Cookbook, proves it doesn't take an awful lot of forethought, talent or time to whip up something infinitely more delectable.
Recipes for mushroom taleggio, spinach bruschetta and pot roasted salmon are winners - just as you'd expect from a man who has provided the Evening Standard with a recipe of the day for three years and worked at 192 and The Lexington in Soho. Oh yes, and acted as consultant for Sotheby's new Bond Street restaurant, which opened this week.
When he's back in Ireland with wife Sue Bruce Smith and their young son Tom, they decamp at his parents' homestead, preferring to gather around Bruce and Mavis Arnold's Aga with family and friends rather than venturing out on the town.