These days I allow myself the odd Sunday lunch out, something which a few years ago I would have regarded as bizarre and almost daring.

Now I find that if I want to go to lunch at the weekend anywhere halfway decent, I need to book well in advance.

The world and its wife seem to go out as a matter of habit and only the slightly odd folk, who actually enjoy slaving over a hot stove, eat the traditional Sunday roast and three vegetables in their own home.

I like to go out if my daughter and family come to visit so I can spend time with them rather than beating seven kinds of hell out of terminally lumpy gravy.

But when my family was young it would never have occurred to us to do other than enjoy a traditional Sunday meal at home.

My husband would meet his brother-in-law at the pub for drinks while my daughter and I cooked and we both enjoyed it.

It also meant my daughter grew up with a reasonable knowledge of how to cook a basic meal.

As time went on and she became more adventurous and branched out into pastry, trifles, crumbles, you name it and she would have a go.

There were days when I feared that Sunday lunch would become Monday's breakfast but when she married she was a very competent cook.

That is why I feel so sad for the young people today who, if the newspapers are to be believed, go into adult life never having gone through the grey pastry stage or made custard you could cut with a knife.

It's a wonderful feeling when you visit your daughter for the first time and you have a meal she has produced unaided. You feel so proud that you helped to make her such a good cook.

When I was first married there was virtually nothing available in the way of takeaways. Fish and chips was about as adventurous as you got.

In fact, fish and chips was quite an expensive dish in relation to the weekly wage. With the advent of burger bars and Chinese takeaways and curry houses, families became more adventurous to the detriment, I have to say, of home cooking.

There is also, of course, a wonderful collection of ready meals available in supermarkets and I suppose it has to be said in their defence that they introduce a whole new eating experience with flavours we might never enjoy if we had to start from scratch and chop herbs and grind up spices.

Don't get me wrong - I am not against such things. Indeed, for many people who live alone they provide some excellent meals.

But it is a pity that so many young people could not produce a decent meal without the help of a supermarket freezer.

I know the pace of life is so much faster these days with many more mothers doing full-time jobs and quite possibly ready meals mean some children get better food than they might otherwise get.

But it's at quite a cost, both in terms of money spent and possibly in nutrition.

I so enjoyed those times with my daughter and I know she has passed on her skills in turn.

One of my Christmas pleasures is a beautiful cake, made and decorated by my granddaughter. I have also had some lovely meals, quite simple but well made.

Perhaps the shock reports in the press will startle some mothers and daughters into trying out some simple recipes at home.

As a last resort they could watch 'Ready, Steady, Cook' as they wrestle with tonight's supper!

And if they stick one more leaf of parsley or one more drift of icing sugar on an otherwise decent dish, I'll chuck my ready steady meal at the TV.