Baked plaice, squid and samphire

One of the things I love about Eastbourne is that there seem to be lots of worse drivers than me. I also love the way that the sea changes all the time

It's been great spending the weekend with my old man. I don't know think I've ever written about him here. He's one of those people that can drink anyone under the table, has something interesting to say about every topic from football to philosophy, and appears to be on a slightly different planet to the rest of the world. When you give my dad a problem, like "How do I convince the grant people that my travelling round the world and cooking would benefit the UK?" (bit of a tall order, clearly), he'll come up with loads of ideas and solutions, and inspire you to the point that you actually start thinking maybe your dreams can come true. Another brilliant thing about him is that he can laugh at himself, which I think is one the most important qualities you can have in life. Far too many people take themselves incredibly seriously. So my daddy's wonderful and can do almost anything. One thing he definitely can't do, however, is cook. He tries, bless him, as he needs to survive when my mum is in Poland, but I can see he appreciates my taking charge of the weekend menu as soon as I arrive. Dinners are usually fish from that shop on the seafront I always go on about

This time, I ended up getting load of small, local plaice, as they had a good offer on them (I got eight for under £3!), and baking them, well seasoned, with thyme and red palm and canola oil. I wasn't being creative or awkward, that was literally the only oil my dad had in the house. I also stuck some parboiled potatoes in the baking tray along with the fish, as well as onions and bruised garlic cloves. That all took half an hour on a medium heat. We had samphire and squid on the side. The samphire I'd left to stand in boiled water for five minutes, and served with butter. The squid I pan-fried (seasoned beforehand) in the red palm and canola oil again (which gave it a great colour), on a really high heat for 5min. Then squirted with lemon juice, of course

Apart from eating lovely fish, we drank many bottles of cava, had some long overdue hear-to-hearts and found lots of random Polish and Russian music clips on YouTube. I wish I was still there, a weekend always feels like too short a time to spend with the ones you love, doing what you enjoy