Well, of course I would. I had learned how to look after clothes as a fag at school and, as for cooking, anything George Clooney could do in that line I could do, too.
Didn't I live in Islington, a place where every man is civilised and sophisticated? A healthy and varied diet should be no problem at all.
Now the key to male cooking is the beef stew. You chuck in a lot of meat and vegetables and boil it all up and then you reboil it on successive nights. That satisfies the variety criterion because the first night it is chewy, the second it is softer and by the time you get to the end of the week (time to do another batch), it is soup. Also, once you have put in mushrooms, beans, parsnips and onions, you are well on your way to your five vegetables a day.
So beef stew it was and, when I thought it had cooked enough, I went to get it out of the oven. Normally you can tell when it is ready by the delicious smell but, unfortunately, I had set fire to a kipper while preparing breakfast and all I could smell was burnt fish.
So I would have to guess the timing but ... wait, there was another guide I could use. No one can eat stew without carrots, so I could pop them in the microwave and pull the stew out when they were ready. Everything on the table together, that's what Clooney would do.
Now I am a dab hand with the microwave. Not difficult you may say, but I do know someone who put in a can of baked beans unopened with the result that the kitchen ceiling had to be replastered. So I know not to do that and, in any case, the carrots did not come in a tin.
The answer was to get the best plastic microwave container, the one with a rack inside and a plastic top so that you do not need to use cling film, add a little water and pop it into the microwave.
How long? Well 10 minutes seemed about right - just time for me to read that article in the newspaper.
I don't like to admit to being defrauded but clearly whoever sold us that plastic thing as a microwave dish saw us coming. When I opened the microwave, the plastic had gone soft and wrapped itself around the carrots like lycra around a pop star.
Should I still eat the carrots? Pride said "Yes", but that meant bringing them out of their tightly fitting sarcophagi.
Still I needed them badly. If you put mushroom in a stew it goes an unattractive grey colour and the carrots were all that I had to make it all look edible.
Okay then, out with the scissors and add the newly released carrots to the plate. Rather a nasty taste of burnt plastic but decidedly less monochrome.
The question is: What should I do about the loss of the plastic dish, one of my wife's favourites if I recall correctly?
Perhaps I could say that there had been a burglary and that it was the only thing taken; or that an auctioneer called and, recognising its artistic merit, took it off to be sold.
No, none of that will do. She will have to be told ... so it's just a question of when.
The answer to that is obvious: while she is 11,500 miles away, that's when.
That is why I hope that she is reading this article.
Before retiring, John Watson was a partner in an international law firm. He now writes from Islington, London.
