Thank you and…….

When I lived in America the one holiday ..... the name given to any day of mass celebration...... I really embraced was Thanks Giving. It’s brilliant. Absolutely everybody goes to see family and if you’re a foreigner abroad they insist you join in …. all are welcome. Everything shuts down from Thursday through Sunday, tumbleweed blows through the empty streets. Even in Manhattan. They eat turkey and cranberry which sometimes comes in a can …… a can shaped lump of cranberry jelly sliced…… and stuffing and sweet potatoes. Sometimes they put sweet marshmallows in the sweet potatoes using recipes that their great grandmother’s used and it’s really sweet. And pies. Americans are mad for pies. They call pastry crust. Where as we might call a crust base with loads of apples or plums or pecans on top, a tart, they call it a pie. Where as we might call a tart with a pastry lid, a pie, they call it a double crust. They make pumpkin pies for Thanks Giving. They also make apple pie and cherry pie and cream-cheese pie and blueberry pie and…. I could go on. All the pies are good… just like mom used to make……and come with cream or ice-cream. Americans love their ice-cream too. When I was a teenager I briefly went out with a boy who lived with his parents in London. I went to visit him and he gave me walnut and maple syrup ice-cream, American ice-cream, kept in the freezer in a large silver tin, bought from a special shop that sold things like walnut and maple syrup ice-cream. This was food of the gods. And Americans. I had never tasted walnut and maple syrup ice-cream. Such things only existed in the movies along with blue-cheese dressing, sushi and Mexican food. The most exciting ice-cream event in my house was the arrival of the Arctic Roll, knocking the slab of Neapolitan off its exotic perch.

Back in Blighty I don’t usually celebrate Thanks Giving but this year, having been in touch with my Manhattan mates to make sure they’re all safe and sound, I got a taste for turkey. So, after much searching I found a small, ready-to-roast piece in M&S and we had our own little celebration. I did a kind of Ottolenghi version with red rice, puy lentils and butternut squash, crispy onions, chili and cranberry stuffing. I didn't make a pie, I made Nigella's Bakewell Tart which turned out remakably well  ……. and I gave thanks.

Top tip: respect flood water…..stay in!!

Tim nice but.....not really a rock star....

'Let us pray' said Tim Robbins, pulling on his guitar.

Last week Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band performed what I believe was their one and only London gig, at the Union Chapel in Islington, and I went. He was looking very well for a man in his early 50s: dressed in black jeans and black frock coat, the sort usually favoured by the gambler in wild west movies, a couple of stone lighter than when I used to see him and his sons mooching around the West Village when I lived in New York (trailing after someone going in the same direction as you doesn't constitute stalking ..... surely?) Now, I should declare I am a bit of a fan, but most of my fandom is based on fancying him (tall, full head of hair......) and, well, even I have to admit this twist in his career is a vanity project of enormous proportions. And of course being someone who worships at the alter of Susan Sarandon, him being shacked up with her did lend him a certain cache. He has now said his remark about this being his midlife crisis album, made to Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs, was just a joke. But, to be honest, although he can definitely hold a tune and play a guitar ....... and has obviously spent a lot of time in his bedroom writing songs ........... there is a reason why Tim Robbins is an actor.

Don't get me wrong he's not awful, sort of Warren Zevon meets Johnny Cash by way of Joni Mitchell, except not as good. He sang a mixture of covers and his own compositions but the lyrics were a tad cheesy. I'm nothing if not a sucker for a cover version and he did them very well which only served to highlight the differences, like they were the proper songs. It didn't help when his were prefaced with things like: 'this is about Nelson Mandela, who I had the good fortune to meet......' The biggest part of the evening, quite literally, was his crouch. Honestly, framed by the curve of his guitar, I couldn't take my eyes off it. Nor could my companion. Or the posse of ladies inappropriately dressed for this time of year, sat in the front row. Actually, I expected the whole congregation to be made up just of women of all ages but it was about 50/50 male and female, albeit almost all middle aged and many were obviously husband and wife combos. Personally, I believe only the French can pull off the cross-over thing. Act, sing? Sing, act? Mais oui, they're all at it. Somehow they can get away with it, possibly because French rock & pop is so ludicrous it doesn't really matter. But the rest? Forget it. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Madonna, Sting ..... need I go on?

Still, Mr Robbins received a standing ovation from the devotees, who then clamoured to buy the CD on sale at the back of the church. The male midlife crisis may be a bit of a cliche but cliches come from truisms and I don't think it's a coincidence that at 52, and newly single, Tim has decided to fulfill his dreams of rock stardom. Apparently, wielding a guitar and reaching for the mic is now as popular as sports cars, motorbikes, leather trousers and shagging the secretary when men hit that certain age. And why not unleash your inner Bono? It's certainly a lot safer than hurtling down the Dorking Bypass on your Suzuki. However, not everyone needs to immortalise themselves on the front of a T-shirt...

Top tip: Winter's back and so is Nigella ...... stay home and watch food porn, Thursdays, BBC2, 8pm