Okay, now that you have mortgaged your house and car to get everything in order, teach the lady of the house some cross-stitch, as it shall be invaluable if you manage to get the apple pie to the stage where it is ready to get into the oven.

1. Start by peeling and coring the apples, slice or grate them depending on your patience levels and as the connoisseur chefs say, keep aside.

2. Mix the maida and butter slowly, form a dough and divide into two parts, each exactly one seventh and six seventh of the gross weight of the dough.

3. Husbands, get the rolling pin from wherever you hid it last, you need to roll out the six seventh part of the dough into a poli large enough to line the baking dish. Here is where you ensure that the neighbourhood is insured against fire and your kids have been trained to dial 999

4. Get back to the apples now, I mean the grated ones, boy, don't get dirty ideas !!!! They should now be looking like someone has stepped on them. Take them as you would, add the sugar, or put your two year old on the table and let her play around. Give some business to the carpet cleaners also, cos even they gotta eat. Add the cinnamon powder, but just a pinch or your toilet will be running overtime the next morning.

5. This part is absolutely necessary and should be done with the utmost care. Open the bottle of rum or Kahlua, take two glasses, pour out about ninety percent of the stuff and take a good swig. You must ascertain that the stuff is strong enough to put everyone into a trance immediately. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. So when you are sure that the stuff could win you a dozen friends in the evening, just by its mere whiff, pour some onto the apple-sugar mixture and spread it evenly in the baking dish.

6. Now create some sort of lattice work with the remaining dough, (the one seventh part) using the skills acquired by her with the knitting needles, wool and the book, so it looks just like the cookery glossies.

7. Do the following quickly. Bung the baking dish with the oil under the dough under the apple-sugar-rum mixture under the knitted./lattice cover into the oven which should be preheated to about 300 degrees F, shut the main door, get everybody into the car, drive out till the end of the block, and sit listening to the radio for about half an hour pretending to be out of town tourists looking for directions, for about thirty minutes. If the house blows up before that, drive out of town like the blazes, go to another town and claim insurance due to bombing by the IRA or the Ku Klux Klan. Buy a mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and spend the rest of your lives hobnobbing with the idle and well heeled, telling them stories of how you used to do your own cooking and cleaning (imagine!) when in Atlanta.

8. Now, if your home doesn't blow up, boy have you got a bigger problem on your hands? Drive back carefully, casually whistling as you open the door so as not to arouse suspicion, and move gingerly to the kitchen or wherever the oven (sorry micro) is kept. Now, if you got the seven steps before this one right, there should be, emanating, right before your nose and eyes, the sort of smell for which Enid Blyton consumed acres of paper writing about. Wait till the whole concoction is a lovely golden brown, and then carefully take it out, allowing it to cool for a while.

9. When the pie has cooled a little, carefully ladle it out of the dish on to a certain kind of china that shows you have an appreciation for things of the renaissance period. Sprinkle a bit of castor sugar (on the pie, not the renaissance period !), stand back and admire; open champagne, hug, kiss, thank god, your parents and friends, etc. like you have won an academy award. The placing of a small floweret made of another apple, (you could use a red and green one this time) is not mandatory, but an outstanding aesthetic touch.

10. Serve with pride and a generous helping of fresh whipped cream.