The Gospel according to Jamie.

"What's for dinner, Han?" Hames asked me, bouncing out of the back lounge for a momentary break from the world of COD. Knee-deep in basil and little red chilis and parmesan, I plugged the good part first: "Pesto pasta," and then mumbled the tagline, "...a la Jamie..."

The reaction was right on par: "YES! MY FAVORITE!" and then a pause -- "Oh wait. Is Jamie going to make it weird?!"

These days, Jamie Oliver's like our food prophet at 17 Tamboon Avenue. What Jamie says, goes. So we the cooks of the Cameron household have been making a point to slog out the dishes from Jamie's latest endeavor: 30 Minute Meals. (Hilariously, the US version that comes out in a few months is called Meals in Minutes -- like he knew that although the average human should be able to produce them in 30 minutes, there's no way an American could...) The great part about following Jamie's recipes is that when things go awry (see ensuing paragraphs), it turns out that Jamie the prophet also makes a great scapegoat: if it's bad, it's not your fault! Just blame it on Jamie!

Hames has learned to fear Jamie for a few reasons. Firstly, Jamie (and Hannie) love chili. I thought when I first started cooking here that I might train my new family out of their meat and potatoes ways and introduce them to the beautiful world beyond the door of spice. But no. I have not. I've tried. Jamie's tried. The Camjams just won't ever share my mantra of "it's not a real meal unless your face is sweating." Secondly, Jamie doesn't have a great track record. The Piri-Piri chicken was lemony to the extreme, the red prawn curry was good, but in a string of three curries in a row, in one week ("Can someone PLEASE tell me WHY WE'RE HAVING CURRY AGAIN?" -Jac) and now my pesto was make or break.

One night, Hames got to the foot of the stairs, and sniffed, "Yep, smells spicy even from here."

In the end the pesto was pretty good. With the caveat that we all woke up this morning smelling like we'd been munching on straight garlic all night. When Jamie says garlic or lemon, trust me: go halvesies. "Or, um, even a bit less..." according to the old Hambone.

I guess the jury's still out on whether Jamie's a prophet to be trusted. Don't sell your other cookbooks and move to an island yet. We still have a few more recipes to test before we're ready to put all of our faith in him.