Last week, I asked my little sister if she wanted to come with me to Les Deux Salons, a French-style brasserie in Covent Garden.http://www.lesdeuxsalons.co.uk/ 'No thanks,' She replied quickly. 'It's meant to be really good,' I encouraged her.

Nostalgia is not something I particularly suffer from - I am scarcely hindered by any long-term memories at all- which is both a blessing and a curse - I once had to crawl on my hands and knees out of a cinema to avoid greeting a girl I was at school with, as I had long-forgotten her name.

I grew up in a house where my mother made her own mayonnaise, and when we pleaded for hamburgers she marched down to The Ginger Pig (http://www.thegingerpig.co.uk/) and convinced them to grind their rib-eye steak into patties for us. For all of her children, nothing seems more enticing, illicit and glamorous than take-away.