NICK Coffer can really talk. The bottled water importer turned cooking personality seems born to a life delivering anecdotes.

Yet he only began imparting his pearls of culinary wisdom two years ago.

“In 2009 I had the best and worst year of my life,” he says, talking about the 12-month period in which his business folded due to the recession, banks refused to loan him money to start a new one and he became a house husband looking after his six-month-old son Archie, while wife Jo went back to work.

“After six months I was no closer to a job. I was spending incredible quality time with this wonderful boy, but also going spare. I had a very tense conversation with my dad, around July.

He said: ‘Listen, you’re about to run out of money, what are you doing?’ It was a really scary time.”

The idea of becoming a celebrity chef was not at the top of his list.

“I've always loved cooking, especially with Archie. And because I was bored and actually getting quite depressed I though I’d start a blog about being a dad that cooks,” says Coffer, 39.

“Out of all my ideas it certainly wasn’t the ‘next big thing’, but something to keep me creative. To make it a bit different, I videoed it.”

But those short, and incredibly cute, films of Nick and Archie (now three years old) cooking side by side on mydaddycooks.com were a hit.

“I quietly mentioned it on my Facebook page at the end of 2009 and it got picked up by the internet chat forums. People were coming from the States and Australia to watch my two to three videos a week.

"They started giving feedback on the recipes. It sounds daft, but it didn't cross my mind they’d make them!”

Finally, a bout of heavy snow shot the pair to stardom. “BBC London came out to do a piece on us.”

Soon Nick had firmly established himself as a food personality, with a radio show (Nick Coffer's Weekend Kitchen on BBC Three Counties Radio) and new book, My Daddy Cooks.

Yet, he insists this is not a book about ‘kids’ food’, explaining: “It’s a book about food you eat as a family – and can cook with the kids or not. It’s not an activity book.”

Many people ask Coffer whether Archie will grow up to be a cook, but he thinks that ‘misses the point’.

“All he has is a nice relationship around preparing food. To him, the kitchen is just somewhere he hangs out with his Dad. And also a place he gets huge amounts of validation and praise, which is so important for a toddler. When he saw the book, he said: ‘Oh it’s my book. I’ve cooked that.’”

Here are some simple “Tuesday night meals” from My Daddy Cooks...