Did you enjoy your scallops, steak and chocolate mousse on Friday night? If the hype is to be believed, thousands of wannabe chefs stocked up and stayed in for the chance to Cookalong Live with Gordon Ramsay.

The brainchild of Channel 4, the concept was simple: publish the menu and recipes in advance online, market the show to within an inch of its life, then sit back and allow to simmer.

According to supermarkets, it was a recipe for success. Asda expected average sales of the ingredients for Ramsay's TV dinner to increase by 200% by the time the show went to air at 9pm. Morrisons reported that sales of scallops, the starter dish, were up 500%; Waitrose said they expected theirs to be up 600%. Ramsay recommended the hand-dived variety, but since these are usually on the first refrigerated lorry out of Scotland, let's settle for frozen Canadian ones selling half-price at a supermarket near you.

Also on the menu was steak, and mousse with chocolate-covered honeycomb (that's a Crunchie to you and me).

Sally Brooks, a buyer for Waitrose, said: "With the programme's producers encouraging customers to cook along from home, it certainly appears that people aren't taking any chances and are ensuring that their fridges and freezers are stocked up."

That people are willing to shell out for Gordon's gourmet meal is hardly surprising. We are total suckers for celebrity chefs. Nigella gets all gooey over goose fat, and the shops sell out. Jamie tells us what we always, deep down, really knew about the poultry industry, and we stop buying chickens for £2.50.

I tuned in with interest on Friday night, although I confess I didn't join in the game. You see, the first flaw I encountered in the elaborate project is that it presupposes you have a telly in your kitchen. I'm afraid I was not rearranging the furniture for Gordon or anybody else. And try as I might, I couldn't get the microwave - albeit a wonder of technology with dozens of useless settings - to switch to television mode.

But I think I'm glad. Much as I love cooking, the Ramsay experiment struck me as a real-time kitchen nightmare. Accompanied by Radio One DJ and culinary numbskull Chris Moyles, the atmosphere was tense from the first whistle. For good measure, there were live links to other celebrities who were on hand to spoil the broth. There was also a wifie with no clothes on who, thankfully, put her pinny on before she singed her scallops.

All this was filmed by a frantic cameraman who, judging by the break-neck angles he was employing, was obviously trying to whip cream at the same time.

In between frenetic shots of Ramsay chopping things with sharp implements and berating Moyles for being incompetent with a sharp tongue, yon nerve-jangling music from Reservoir Dogs would cut in with a run-down of what stage the viewers/cooks should have reached. It was enough to make your blood run cold. I suspected it was Moyles who would be getting his ear cut off.

It left me feeling queasy, unnerved and puzzled as to why anyone would want to turn the therapeutic pastime of cooking into an exercise in stress management. Let Ramsay into your kitchen and the air is bound to turn cordon bleu.