Jealousy is behind the backlash against celebrity chefs, Arabella Weir tells Steve Pratt.

After all, who wouldn't love to rustle up something delicious with scallops and chives with their eyes shut?

Although Arabella Weir's new BBC2 series sends up TV chefs, she says she has "enormous and genuine admiration for people who can cook".

You might not think it from the way she spoofs cooks on the box in Posh Nosh, a new series that ventures into the kitchen with Minty and Simon, the 21st Century equivalent of Fanny and Johnny Cradock.

Minty, played by The Fast Show star Weir, is matron-like while effeminate Simon (Richard E Grant) has a very special relationship with his male tennis coach.

Each week, they prepare a recipe from the country kitchen using their state-of-the-art Aga, while bickering and bitching along the way.

Weir thinks Posh Nosh may have arisen from envy of TV chefs. "I'd love to be able to go, 'just throw the spaghetti in and some coriander and there you have it', but it's just not me," she says.

"One of my closest friends is Italian and says, 'oh, I'll just see what I've got in the fridge', and it's always something you'd pay a fortune for in Soho. All the TV shows just make me feel insufficient so I don't watch them.

"I don't really like anybody who's on TV saying, 'look at my great life and all the marvellous things I'm able to do that you can't, but if you concentrate very hard on my shows, watch all my videos and buy all the books, then you might just be able to throw something together that resembles it'."

Cookery shows just increase her insecurity. Rather than make her feel "what a great thing to do with scallops and chives", they make her think "oh god, I'm just a fat oaf who lives in a horrible kitchen".

She and writer Jon Canter's theory is that lifestyle shows, particularly those dealing with cookery, are only made by people who want you to envy them.

"They don't actually want to teach you anything. They want you to think, 'oh, look at that perfect life. I bet her and her husband never argue, I bet it's just great at their house because she knows what to do with creme fraiche'.

"The other inspiration was in the back of the River Caf book. There's things like, 'if you're serious about making this you'll get your chestnuts fresh from France'. So now, I'm not serious because I'm trying to make a recipe with vacuum-packed chestnuts from Sainsbury's. It's like they're saying, 'well, if you think that's okay, then do it'."

Weir first met co-star Withnail And I star Richard E Grant 18 years ago, when they both appeared in the Les Blair film Honest, Decent And True for the BBC. While writing Posh Nosh, she only had him in mind for the part of Simon.

"At one point we thought he may not be able to do it as our recording dates clashed with a film he was making. We sat there thinking, 'what on earth are we going to do?'," she says.

"We were very clear that it couldn't be an actor who was openly gay because the audience would know all along. With Richard, you just get an air of being gay. He's just completely perfect for the part."

Minty is desperate to be an upper class society woman and is happy to be seen as little more than a nanny to husband Simon, whose mother was a titled woman. He continually corrects Minty's kitchen misdemeanours, such as using the wrong colander, or pronouncing the wine incorrectly.

"The idea of Simon being gay further accentuates the fact that here's a woman who's desperately trying to pretend her life is perfect," says Weir, whose first novel Does My Bum Look Big In This? was one of the bestselling chick-lit books of the 1990s.

"She's got an Aga and she's married to a posh man, so let's not worry about his sexuality. Of course, she realises it but she's just completely blocking it, because to realise it means she's got to confront it, like an addiction.

"The main thing is that they share a commitment to poncey food and a belief that that's the only thing that's important in life."

* Posh Nosh: tonight, BBC2, 9.50pm