I came home from the gym the other night to find Alex sitting in the living room with my nemesis.

It didn’t help that she is a sultry, brunette goddess while my own wan blondeness was looking decidedly limp from an hour of cardio and her milky skin was all peaches and cream while mine was all splotchy, hot, pastiness.

So I walked into my living room and found Alex practically drooling over this woman while she told him that she was going to whip up a nice “past-a” dish.

And he was eating up every word.

I know this because then he turned to me and said: “You could do this, you should listen to her.”

And then Nigella Lawson looked through our TV at me and winked in a completely smug way.

Seriously, that lady is a plague on womankind.

OK, so maybe that is a little harsh, but seriously, I’m very against that whole domestic goddess thing she has going on.

I have trouble squeezing in work, time with Alex, my crazy cat, some semblance of a social life, family and Grey’s Anatomy without cooking a three-course meal, dressing up and hosting a dinner party for my nearest and dearest, and then clearing up and making some after-dinner snack to have with our cognac like some deranged 1950s housewife.

Throw in kids and it would be enough to send Ethel, the deranged 1950s housewife who lives inside me, inside for a Becks and a lie down.

Of course it helps that Nigella is married to a gazillionaire and she herself brings in a modest $36 million, so she isn’t your average working mother.

And while she is passionately chopping up aubergines or licking her lips while icing a perfectly risen cupcake or exclaiming over the perfectness of the season’s first strawberries, while waxing poetically about her children or her husband as she stands in her perfect kitchen, she makes me feel like a failure.

Partly because my cupcakes aren’t so much cups as smush, and biting into a strawberry never seems suggestive when I do it, just messy – because let’s face it, nothing says sexy like seeds in your teeth.

The point is, no matter how many empowerment books we read, or Oprah episodes we watch and recipes we try, women cannot do it all.

Not at the same time, anyway.

And selling the idea of domestic goddessness only serves to perpetuate a myth that we can.

I am domestic disabled.

When I get the time and the inclination takes me, I bake.

My cakes may dip in the middle and one time – ONE time – I mixed up the salt and the sugar (Alex, bless his heart, still gagged his way through a piece).

My idea of darning is to put everything in the sewing basket, think about picking up a needle and thread, and then throwing it all out and buying some new darn socks.

Looking after my husband involves pointing out the kitchen, showing him where the washing powder is kept and not being too tired every night of the week.

And if he is really lucky, I might even find time to whip up a pasta dish.

Usually on a night when I am too tired.

All us gals can do is try the best we can.

And we don’t need some sultry, culinary queen making us feel like our best should be better.