Many families have an eccentric aunt who is remembered with great fondness. I had an Auntie Dorothy, who, during her youth, spent her holidays travelling the world on banana boats and in her later years became a dab hand at making very potent home-made country wines.

Laura Lockington, author of Cupboard Love, had a Great Aunt Lucy, who insisted on wearing a feathered turban, even when baking cakes.

Great Aunt Lucy lived in Faringdon and Laura visited her often when she was a child. Laura said she explained that she was a relation of my grandmother and was always referred to by the family as Dearest Great Aunt Lucy.

“In retrospect, I think it was because she was considered wealthy," said Laura. "I think we were all hoping for an inheritance. How wrong we were.”

Laura smiles now when she remembers the moment that they all discovered her aunt had left everything to what she called the Royal Asian Society. Widowed, child-free, with a small private income, aunt Lucy was immense fun and taught Laura so many things about food etiquette and making cakes.

“Correct toasting fork etiquette, for example, and how to eat a banana with a knife and fork, though I honestly can’t think of a time when that particular skill has come in handy," said Laura.

She also taught Laura how to segment an orange so that there was no white pith or membrane on it and how to slice a pineapple leaving no skin or toenaily bits, which has come in handy over the years.

Then there was the cheese board.

“It was important that we knew how to cut a ripe brie without appearing greedy. She would insist that we never, ever cut the nose off for ourselves."

When Laura stayed over night at Aunt Lucy’s, she would have to make her aunt a cup of thunder tea for elevenses.

“You start with a bone china cup and saucer, Assam tea leaves and a shot of single malt. She would have this every morning at 11am, to warm her bones. When I stayed with her I was allowed to measure the tot of foul-smelling spirit into the cup and then pour the tea. How sophisticated it all seemed at the time. Yes, tea was a big thing with Dearest Great Aunt Lucy. Gosh, I still miss her. We would spend the day together in her lovely kitchen making cakes. I remember a particularly delicious walnut cake, also cheese scones and her famous gingersnaps.

“The smell of those sizzling, sharp-sweet, almost peppery discs of molten amber being cooked in the oven, flooded the house with a mouthwatering aroma. Then, the magical part. Whilst they were still dappled, hot and malleable, they were shaped around the handle of a thick wooden spoon and left to cool. Later, thick yellow whipped cream was piped into them and they would sit, pride of place on a cut-glass cake stand. They were so good. It’s a flavour combination I will never forget.”

Laura recalled that they cracked and splintered into sweet-tasting gingery shards in the mouth, followed by the unctuous artery-clogging cream.

It was the turban that singled Aunt Lucy out as a great eccentric. She was never seen without it. It was a rather grand feathered turban which became very tatty as it grew older and older.

“She claimed that it kept her warm. It may have done, but I also think she wore it to give herself an air of Edith Sitwell, of whom she was a great admirer. She would take me to Oxford where she had a great friend at Exeter College and we would then go to tea somewhere in the Turl and eat sticky cream buns while her feather turban gently moulted, shedding small coloured feathers on to the starched white linen tablecloth."

Since those days Laura has marked her life with the meals, some which have been lovingly cooked to perfection, some enjoyed because they were shared with friends.

In her introduction to Cupboard Love, which she calls a food romance, Laura says that she couldn’t describe with any certainty her first wedding but she can remember what she had for dinner as she has an unhealthy interest in food.

“It’s not just my food which fascinates me, but your food, his food, her food, their food.

“In restaurants I peer at other people’s plates. In supermarkets I forensically examine other people’s trolleys. It’s not that I want what they have, I just want to know what they are having. I’m a food stalker,” she admits without shame, adding that what we eat is as telling as what we wear.

She believes it’s our relationship with food that determines our relationships with others. Invite Laura to your home and she won’t browse the bookshelf, but the contents of your fridge. It is as revealing to her as money, sex or religion.

On flicking through the opening pages of Cupboard Love, I soon realise that here was a woman who was writing the things I would like to write, so I turned off my computer, sat down with a glass of wine and began turning the pages. The first chapter, Grandmothers: Putting the Fun into Funeral, begins with a recipe for ham cooked in cider, which she promises is so delicious we will never buy pre-packed ham ever again. She then follows this with the story of two formidable grandmothers and a family funeral. They prove to be just as amusing as her Aunt Lucy — and the food they produce just as tasty.

Cupboard Love takes the reader on a gastronomic romp through Laura’s life. It may not turn us into food stalkers, but it will make us think twice about the food we eat.

 Cupboard Love is published by Book Guild Publishing at £9.99.