This competition just gets tougher!

I've created a monster. To be more accurate daytime-cookery-competition-TV has created a monster.
Not a mealtime goes by in the Shaw household now without my four-year old daughter proclaiming "the carrots are delicious, and the taste comes through from the pine nuts. But the tomatoes are yuck."
Fortunately for me, whether we have lamb and sweet potato tagine with roasted vegetable cous cous or fishfingers and oven chips, her act always ends with "Today's winner is..." dramatic pause, camera switches from one sweating contestant to the next "...Neil".
I'm presuming she uses my first name to avoid any accusation of the judge favouring Daddy.
Honestly, she doesn't watch that much TV, but clearly just enough to turn her into a combination of John Torode and Jilly Goolden.
There are upsides as well, she is fascinated by cookery. The routine actually starts before the meal hits the table.
While I stand in the kitchen slaving away over a hot stove, she grabs a stool and works along beside me.
I wouldn't say she's quite Great British Menu material yet, at least I can't see Raymond Blanc tucking into a plastic cup half filled with water, mixed with milk, potato peelings, rice and £3.50-worth of organic dried wild basil. But she gets the idea. And I think she's planning the first episode of Come Dine With Me to feature five toddlers.
The foreign students we play host to over the summer have also been impressed - which isn't a good thing for the state of British cuisine.
Over the past two years we've had students staying with us from France, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy and Spain and all of them notice a range of cultural differences between our country and theirs.
But what they all notice in common is how little cooking people in Britain do, and how little time they spend together as a family eating.
Every one of them has been stunned by the amount of space given over in British supermarkets to ready meals and processed food.
And every one of them has been shocked by tales from their friends, staying in other houses, of meal after meal in front of the TV eating frozen pizza or beans on toast.
I usually reply with something about Britain having the longest working hours in Europe, but the reality is we seem to have lost the process that see one generation pass on cookery skills, even basic life skills, to the next.
The truth is, we would rather bung a shop-bought chicken masala in the microwave for three minutes and eat it while watching someone cook for a bunch of pretentious judges rather than cook one from fresh and eat it with our family talking about their day.
Well, I guess I better start preparing the menu for this evening, can't face another harsh dressing down from The Judge.