However, when it comes to kitchen emergencies, I consider myself a pro. Catering a wedding banquet in Norfolk, I once stretched half of the smoked chicken appetisers into a main meal of poultry with julienne vegetables, after the rib of beef was snatched by the groom’s ridiculously short-legged dachshund. In a food crisis, I can excel.

‘What have we got to hand, Poppy?’

Poppy opens the freezer. ‘We have frozen prawns.’

I peek into the brown paper bag that the boys from Science Lab judiciously left for us yesterday. Inside are genetically modified chillies that will no doubt blow our heads off if we dare to eat them. ‘We have chillies.’

‘They’ll be far too hot to eat!’ Poppy objects.

I remind her that we cook for TV. Nobody has to eat them. ‘Poppy, tell me we have rice?’

Poppy ducks her head into the food cupboard.

‘We have rice. And tomato sauce. Tapioca flour. A can of butter beans. Some crushed garlic, rice flour, preserved lemons, coconut milk.’ I hear Poppy scraping tins and jars around.

I open the fridge. We still have the spinach, cream and sweet potatoes I had planned to serve with the medley of glazed scallops with chilli jam for starters and oven-baked monkfish for the main.

‘Pass me the rice, the butter beans and the garlic, please, Poppy. And the tomato sauce.’ That’s what I’ve been left to work with: staples.

With my hand, I guide Poppy to get out of the cupboard without banging her head

I do another memory check of dishes I’ve tried, tested and mastered over the years.

‘Okay. How about we form some vegan-scallopy-things out of these butter beans, and for the main, we’ll coat the prawns in these chillies, tomato sauce and garlic for a dish I call Cheating Hot Sticky Prawns?’

Poppy looks aghast. ‘Cheating, Miss Gracie?’

‘Because it’s easy, Poppy. Only we’ll be wiser.’

‘Well then, it sounds perfect.’

It’s hardly perfect. The frozen prawns are i) frozen and ii) not of the size or plumpness I’d prefer. The dishes are especially not what I’d have chosen for what may yet be my swansong on the small screen, depending how the day pans out. But it will pass as a seafood-ish extravaganza, as I’d promised viewers on the closing of our last recorded episode – and anything vegan is more popular by the day. Given the time we have, it will do.

From down the corridor, I hear the crew making their way towards our studio.

‘Let’s go for it, Poppy.’

‘The show must go on!’

Poppy flashes her diamanté smile.

I beam my pearly whites.

‘Fake it ’til you make it,’ I concede, I hope charmingly.

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