Top Tip for Harvest Festival

Last year I was almost caught out, I hadn't organised our family offering for the Harvest Festival Hampers for the local elderly until the eleventh hour, the very last morning. You know how it goes, the school makes hampers for elderly folk, from food donated by children and families from the school.

Apart from the obvious canned tuna and 'Bob the Builder' spaghetti hoops in the kitchen cupboards, I was at a loss, Ocado were not scheduled to deliver until later that night. The cupboard was bare. Then suddenly I remembered that earlier in the week James had received a hamper from work, on the event of pulling off a particular deal. The basket in the cellar was promptly raided, and some suitably 'special' provisions - a tin of Pate de foie gras and a bag of Carluccio's dried porcini were commandeered. The day was saved, and the children had appropriate food items to hand over as required,.... we were all happy - apart that is from James. When he returned from work later that evening, he was completely unimpressed at the loss of his prized pate. He rather unkindly commented that he hoped we had given the 'old goats' gout! He said that our gifts made us look like a family of 'flash Hooray Henry's'.

I felt very exposed......, especially when I subsequently saw our ostentatious 'gifts', set amongst the stem ginger cookies, jars of fruit in alcohol, and boxes of Twinings breakfast tea.

This year, in an effort to cultivate the required image I planned well in advance. I bought a wonderful fruit cake from Konditor and Cook at Waterloo (Nigella says that if you can get to a branch of Konditor & Cook, there is no need to ever bake yourself). I removed the packaging, dusted it with icing sugar - (in order to disguise it should anyone guess), wrapped it in foil, and put it in an old Fortnum and Mason tin. I was delighted with cunning plan, I must say. Our cake looked so 'home spun' but terribly tasteful.

Marks out of ten for ingenuity? Fifteen. Did they guess I hadn't baked it myself? Certainly not. I looked so caring, I almost wept at my own thoughtfulness. I'll repeat the fake home bakes at every opportunity.

Bravo Me!