If you’re like me, you sometimes wonder how come getting ready for even a small dinner party can be an all-day affair that leaves the kitchen looking like the Third Panzer Division stopped by for a hasty meal and didn’t do the dishes.

How is it that a TV chef can do it all  – three, sometimes four elegant courses, not a drop of splattered oil on their shirts, never mind life-threatening cuts and burns on their exposed parts – in half an hour? I know they are much better cooks than I am and the shows are edited for time and they have help. But I really didn’t know just how much help until the other day when I stumbled across this revealing article.

It turns out that those “3o-minute” meals, on the Food Network at least, require 15-20 people working in backstage kitchens to prepare the food for the chef out in front of the camera. Each meal is decided on months in advance and “simple” recipes are worked on for up to 15 weeks before taping.

With that kind of help I might even have time to make dessert.