The television networks are awash with harridans. Stick-thin dieticians telling us our poo is the wrong colour; bland designers making us paint everything beige; laughably-dressed posh birds mocking what we wear and of course the lovely Aggie Mackenzie and Kim Woodburn with their rubber gloves and swabs checking out the germs in our kitchens. Aggie has known me long enough to know I believe in a pinch of dirt being a damn sight more healthy than Dettoxing everything in sight, but not everyone would agree with me. Including most health inspectors.

The fact is that food poisoning incidents in the home kitchen double during the summer months. Here at OFM we decided to send a professional public health inspector (rather than a woman in fur-trimmed Marigolds) to check out what killer bugs lie behind the average 'clean' domestic kitchen. Rather than risking my own dinner party invitations being politely turned down, we delegated The Observer Food Monthly's own Andrew Purvis.

If there is only one thing our kitchens need less than a dose of salmonella it's the threat of another TV cook. Until our increasingly desperate TV moguls come up with a presenter with the natural ease of Jamie or the unashamed sexiness of Nigella it looks as if we may have to import a few as a temporary measure. Regular visitors to the US will know Padma Lakshmi's (aka Mrs Salman Rushdie) show and cookbook. Yes, she looks good on camera - not to mention this month's cover - but can she cook? Perhaps all this is a warning to us to stay out of the kitchen for a while.

From hereon OFM goes alfresco. We have all the best addresses at which to eat outdoors, a sample of summer vegetarian cooking from the Gate restaurant's new cookbook and a handful of ideas from me as to what to make for lunch in the garden. We also have Alex Renton returning to the island of Tiree, to relive his Scottish childhood holidays hunting snails, lobsters and crab while Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall swaps his gumboots for flippers and slices sashimi on a boat deck in the Seychelles. Which is probably easier to do than it is to say. Oh, and we tell you where Alberta Ferretti, Jools Oliver and the fabulous Alek Wek are dining this summer.

· Nigel Slater is The Observer's cookery writer Caroline Boucher's Hot News returns next month