As usual, our friend 9 has a good point.

Cooking shows are most helpful to people who already know how to cook and are just looking for new ideas. (They remind me of gym class when I was in high school -- great for athletes but dreadful for the rest of us.) Today's real knowledge gap is in the area of "good, plain" cookery, the business of cranking out three nourishing, healthy and delicious squares a day for the family without straining the household budget.

Not for the first time, I note that an activity becomes officially "interesting" when it is converted from domestic work done by women for no pay into a trade practised by men in public spaces for high wages and a cut of the profits. Home cooking is boring until you do it like Gordon Ramsay. Sewing is ho-hum unless you can aspire to "designer" status.

So I'm waiting for the Nigella Lawson of scrubbing the bathroom!