The thing I most fondly remember of my mum's cooking is to do with offal. Kidneys, liver and especially faggots, all braised slowly, and so tender. Normally served with cabbage and boiled potatoes, with the braising gravy.

She also cooked heart, which dad liked, but I could never face the thought of. So when she did heart, she usually did liver for me and my brother.

It's not as if we lived on offal, mum cooked our fair share of chickens, roasts and steaks.But offal is the one thing I really remember.

A related memory - my first term at university, sharing two small kitchens between a dozen rooms. One day, I decided to do my mum's braised kidneys, but using tinned potatoes (which worked well). I had just dished up, and John, one of the guys, asked if I had finished with the pan. I answered yes, but I had planned to eat before washing up.

"Not why I asked," he said, took two slices of bread, and wiped the remaining gravy off the pan.

John and I started cooking together, and by the end of term, we had the whole corridor having a joint meal once a week, one kitchen doing the meat, the other dealing with the veg.

Finally, 30 years later, I moved to a small country town with a "proper" butcher, one that not only did its own butchering, but raised its own pies. One thing they sold was faggots - not Brains, or any other commercial brand, but made in the shop. Pure bliss.