TV Dinners

Shit Foodies Say...

2012-02-08T02:09:00.001-08:00

Slightly guilty...

Fabulous Baker Boys

2011-12-22T04:49:00.000-08:00

Channel 4 have an ace looking new show coming up.

Tom and Henry are The Fabulous Baker Boys are very much contenders for FYHC, they're baking food 'men like to eat', fewer cupcakes, more pies. Sounds good to me.

Channel 4 say:

"The series will star brothers Tom, who is a baker, and Henry, a chef who runs the local butcher's shop next door to his brother's bakery in the heart of Gloucestershire."

I cannot wait.

More here

Restaurants of 2011

2011-12-15T09:39:00.000-08:00

Time Out have just posted their Best of 2011 and I have to say on the whole I very much agree. I've been to some wonderful restaurants, had some incredible meals and some great memories. It's funny that I used to rush to the "Best of the year - music events" on previous years, this year, who cares about Dubstep, Adele and Gnarls Barclay (seriously?!). This year, it's all about the food.

So here are my top restaurant experiences of 2011.

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal - Proper grown up, real fun, exciting food. I want to go every week to have the salted butter pudding. I won't sleep quite as well until I eat that again.

Pale Blue Door - In a higgledy-piggley house in Hackney with a boistrous cabaret tranny, unlimited gin and some exciting sharing platters. Everyone becomes great friends and smiles a lot.

Mishkins - The same pair own Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino and now Mishkins, the NY Jewish Deli opposite Shrek. I went. I ate a Reuben sandwich. I got seated by Russel Norman - swoon!

MeatLiquor - It opened early amid a Twitter storm, off Regent St burger joint from the travelling meat van MeatEasy is dead simple, dead reasonable and always busy. Go early, it's great.

Brixton Village - Honest Burgers, Mama Lans and very many more excellent market-units-turned-cafes in rebranded Granville Market is almost too hipster for its own good. I love it.

Pollen Street Social - I have dragged so many people to this place and it doesn't disappoint. There's a dessert bar where the chefs tell you all about the puddings and you can try stuff. You can order two main courses and two starters as a tasting menu. You can walk in and sit at the bar. The chef - Jason Atherton is very often in the kitchen.

Corner Room - Nuno Mendez's little secret upstairs from Viajante. Reasonable, sometimes confounding food from the Portuguese chef.

Jun Tanaka Pearl - £39 for three courses offer could so easily disappoint, but it really didn't. Really delicate, elegant food, served by in a stunning room by attentive waitstaff with very many lovely extra courses. If you see this offer again, don't miss out.

Taste Festival - So much wonderful food (and oysters too) and I gave Omar Allibhoy my number, he still hasn't called. Wonder if he's lost it...

Maltby Street - This really was a surprise, little pockets of people enjoying St John baked goods, Monmouth coffee, sausage sandwiches and hot cider. Really worth a wander.

Hawksmoor - Steak, cocktails and in my case about six side dishes. Grown up meat restaurant, take a date, just don't expect them to be able to move afterwards.

Young Turks - When people talk snottily about pop up restaurants, I will think about The Young Turks and tell them they've just not been to a good one. A restaurant in a Canary Wharf tower, on a car park roof, and upstairs in an historic boozer. Each time you come away in love with your wait staff, best friends with your neighbour, treasuring your menu like a manscript and saying the most ludicrous things about your dinner "THE CHICKEN SKIN WAS DIVINE", "WAS THAT AUBERGINE DIP? WHAT WAS IN IT? IT WAS INSANE!" You know, stupid stuff. It's the Young Turks fault. They're too damn good.

Spuntino - I want to eat truffled eggs on toast whilst pretending I'm in Lower East Side New York every day forever.

Still to do

Ledbury ( I love this story)

Boce De Lupo (Twice booked, twice cancelled. One day...)

Duck Soup (love their tumblr of the menu of the day)

Copita (Bar Chocolat was great, I'm hearing the new restaurant in its place is pretty awesome too)

Actual Tooting Curry Houses (where to start?)

Turkey...

2011-11-25T09:37:00.001-08:00

I'm hosting a Christmas dinner for twelve on Sunday. I'm going to bear this in mind...

Annoying restaurant websites

2011-11-25T09:33:00.001-08:00

This is brilliant, if a little niche.

http://neversaidaboutrestaurantwebsites.tumblr.com

Masterchef USA

2011-11-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

I'm desperate for Masterchef USA to be shown on the UK. However when perusing the US website to find out some more and see some funny clips, I managed to discover who the overall winner is. Dammit. I guess that's saved me hours...

Masterchef the Professionals

2011-11-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's back! Hurrah!

Monica Galetti's even more ruthless. The voiceover person is now a man?! India Knight where are you? The emotive music starts 22 minutes into episode two. Oh, Masterchef The Professionals, it's great to have you back. I love twinkly, smiley Michel Roux Junior and Greg looks like he's having a lovely time.

I love Masterchef The Professionals because it's great to see driven, professional, talented people who love what they do at the top of their game. I also quite fancy chefs...

Make sure you Sky Plus it, it's all over the shop. But if you really want the schedule, the listings are:

Monday 8:30, Tuesday 7pm, Wednesday 8pm, Thursday 8pm. Well that was this week. Who knows about next week...

Relive last year's final (well, sort of)

This has been tweeted a lot today...

2011-11-09T05:59:00.001-08:00

But having eaten something very similar recently... This made me smile.

Celebrity Chef Ted Allen Cooks His Favorite Pretentious Foodie Bullshit Meal

Drop Down Menu

2011-11-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

I'm actually OVERWHELMED with all the food programmes on television at the moment. I'm watching hours of food telly a day, and bloody loving it.

Firstly though, there's a new daytime food show on Channel 4! And no-one told me! It's called 'Drop Down Menu'. It stars Gizzi Eskine and BBC Good Food's Matt Tebbutt.

It's exhausting - each day there are two chefs, one celeb, one local producer. Each of the chefs has to cook a dish chosen by the live studio audience. See what I mean, so much going on.

It's a nice show, and it was lovely to see the first night nerves live on TV - at one point I thought Gizzi was going to totally lose it, Garth from Wayne's World style, but it's a tough thing to do, and I'm sure she'll be ace by the end of the week.

They also show nice bits of Channel 4's food shows, so day one was Saint Hugh and Hot Gill cooking slugs (which was very funny) and I believe Rose Grey too.

The only criticisms I have of Drop Down Menu is that it seems to just copy loads of bits of other shows - it's basically Saturday Kitchen. Why not get the previous chef to choose the ingredient for the following day? Or pit the chefs against each other.

Also, I would much rather hear more about the chefs, rather than the tiresome celebs. Michael Caines is way more interesting than Justin Lee Collins plugging his West End show - so why even bother with the cheesy celebs. The website

It's a really nice show though, I still wish I could watch every day just for the ace chefs and lovely clips.

Other chefs they have featured on Channel 4's Drop Down Menu so far are Jun Tanaka, Maria Elia, Paul Rankin.

You can watch Episode 1 of Drop Down Menu (until the 4od bods take it down) here

Bon Iver at St John

2011-11-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

It makes me very happy to see that brilliant band Bon Iver headed over to St John on their recent stopover in London.

MEATliquor - I race after the Meatwagon bandwagon

2011-11-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

I've been following @meatliquor on Twitter for days, I've set up alerts for the hashtag meatliquor, I'd got a friend-of a-foodie-friend to confirm that indeed, this is going to be the name of a new restaurant run by the man behind the incredibly popular Meatwagon.

(For the uninitiated Meatwagon is so popular Jamie Oliver has had a go behind the counter. They have to send out Twitter updates stating when they are not pitching up at street food festivals - so as not to disappoint punters going with the express intention of trying their burgers and eschewing all other food stands.)

So with all this in mind you think I'd be first for an invitation to the opening / press / bloggers night at MEATliquor the venue... Well of course you wouldn't, and I wasn't.

However, never let it be said that TV Dinners doesn't bring you a scruffy review a day late....! My good friend Mr S, let's call him Ernest, was invited. A wonderful man - I haven't seen him eat since a dinner party he held in 2009 and he never drinks to excess - is guest writing this review, and what a review it is.

lageritas - lager, lime and margherita
donkey punch - ginger lemonade

some horrible sweet drink
chicken wings in marmite
steamed cheese on burgers
a cool urban crowd
just off wigmore street
like being in new york
banana ice cream dipped in chocolate and peanuts
fights for food
a girl dancing on a table (this I can confirm, there are photos on Twitter, how very gallant)
seems to be henrietta place

So there you have it, a day late and without even a mention of the words "unctuous, umani, 'soft yielding burger', or meat coma" - for which I think we can all be thankful. Thanks Ernest!

There is possibly an actual race on as to who could do the first review and many of London's best and most well known food bloggers have I'm sure already written posts - which I'll link to as I find them.

MEATliquor opens at 76 Welbeck Street, London W1. 11/11/11 (which incidentally is National Corduroy Day) I cannot wait.

Incidentally, when searching for proper MEATliquor reviews to link out to - I found this awesome quote...
Sri Guru Granth Sahib:
"Eating meat and drinking liquor are demonic vices. Those indulging in drink lose all sense of propriety, have no compassion or love and become demons."
Quite!

Maltby Street and St John Bakery

2011-11-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went for a little walk around London Bridge. As I wandered down Bermondsey Street I noticed Jose, which looked fabulously cute and has definitely been added to my list of places I want to visit. I was making my way to Maltby Street, which is a collection of food traders, some of whom have been moved off Borough Market. It has recently been awarded Newcomer of the year in Observer Food Monthly.

It's not all based on Maltby Street, but on a few streets nearby here is a mapIt really seems like a bit of a hipster party round there when I went. You walk past vintage architectural studio Lassco and turn a corner into what you think is a dead end and find people drinking cider and eating sausages, there is Beas of Bloomsbury who shared an arch with a great goulash seller - who invited me to bring my own booze and come to a lock-in at the arch later.

There was also the super swish and lovely 40 Maltby Street, which is beside the Monmouth Coffee shop, which I have since discovered housed La Grotta Ices and their famous Salted Caramel Ice Cream, dammit.

What I was most excited about though, was visiting St John's Bakery. Although I arrived early, I mooched around (got lost) so much that by the time I got to St John it was after 1pm and all the custard doughnuts were gone. But I did manage to get hold of the last eccles cake. It was like nothing I ever tasted, there were currents, but mostly within the sweet moist pastry there was syrupy brown sugar and spices and loads of it. It was utterly brilliant.

The recipe for Eccles Cake from The Guardian

St John Bakery

Tweeted by a curry sauce...

2011-10-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

I do like the Asda Curry Sauce twitter account. It has made me smile all week with such gems as: "I WILL REWARD YOUR SALIVA GLANDS WITH SYNTHETIC SUNSHINE"

I also particularly enjoyed this exchange between Jay Rayner and the curry sauce...

Asda Budget Curry Sauce
@jayrayner1 Can I get a re-tweet? I'm delicious with fragrant rice, smart-price chicken breasts and mini-poppadoms xx

Jay Rayner
@AsdaCurrySauce no, and if I ever find out which pr company is behind this I will not be nice.

Nigerian treats - over on Brixton Blog

2011-10-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to say I've been blogging elsewhere. You can read my review of Majestic Nigerian restaurant over on Brixton Blog here. I'm writing about food alongside the lovely Miss South from the fabulous North / South Food. Knowledgable and inventive cooks, Miss South and her brother Mr North's recent posts they have included rabbit ragu and homemade mozzarella! And all I do is slag off cookery shows and point out hot chefs - I'm going to have to up my game!

TV Dinners' Review of Majestic Restaurant on Brixton Blog

Penguin's Great Food Collection

2011-10-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Just take a look at these incredible Penguin Great Food Collection books. A collection of historic food related books, pulled into a colourful, beautifully designed collection. The books sound so interesting too, a food compendium by Dumas, the author of The Count of Monte Cristo as well as books by Samuel Pepys, Elizabeth David, Alice Waters - there are details of each book here. The only problem was the price. At £8.99 a book they would cost an absolute fortune to collect (£150 in total).So I was so excited to see the books for sale on thebookpeople.co.uk for a mere fifteen pounds! Utterly wonderful! It's such incredible value. I can't wait for them to arrive.

Masterchef apron

2011-10-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am utterly hooked on Masterchef Australia. All that healthy food, the smiley people wanting the best for each other and taking criticism in a calm and measured way. It's the anti-Hell's Kitchen USA. I will avoid taking this opportunity to post up an image of amazing Aussie beach bum Hayden, but you can see him over at sister site (or sister's site) F Y Hot Chefs. Apparently it's the most watched (non sport related) show in all Australia ever. And with two shows a week averaging 93 minutes long it's quite a commitment to get involved with. Although really, they do go through a huge amount of trouble at the start just to get hold of a Masterchef apron, do they not know they now sell them in John Lewis...

Out of the Frying Pan

2011-10-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the brilliant pair from The Restaurant? James and Alasdair. They were so comical, they got their own spin off show. Sorry for posting three videos, but they really do make me laugh a lot.

The last video cracks me up. Poor the Alasdair.

The big news is, Chef James has another partner in crime and is setting up a restaurant in Shoreditch "exploring the relationship between art and food" called Assemblage.

They are currently recruiting for Front of House staff. I do hope Alasdair was given the option of applying...

The most wonderful pepper pun...

2011-10-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

Oh I do love a good pun, and this Sergeant Pepper Mill is a great one! As seen on the lovely vintage furniture and clothes blog Retro To Go...

Chefs and Tattoos

2011-10-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Anthony Bourdain has a knife dropping blood. Spuntino and Hawksmoor have had a competition about who has the best. Yep, it's chefs and tattoos. At Taste festival earlier in the year I was blown away by how many of the men (and it was men) darting about from behind the marquees in white coats were covered with sleeves of heavy tattoos.

Tommy the currently pretty hapless chef on the current series of Hell's Kitchen USA has taken it to the extreme with a forehead tattoo saying ROCK + ROLL, let's hope he never goes bald. Many chefs have food related tattoos. I particularly love hearing that Matt Bishop has his Mise en Place tattooed onto himself, and Jose from Jose in Bermondsey has a bull on his back - see them here. And now even we can get in on the deal, with these utterly cute temporary tattoos. I totally want a cheese grater on my inner wrist, edgy.

The Young Turks - Ocakbasi

2011-09-22T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm at risk of becoming a bit of a stalker. It's not my fault, they started it. From the moment one of the chefs indulged my geeky adoration and allowed me into the kitchen and to plate up a table of desserts, I was hooked. I'm afraid I'll follow the Young Turks forever more.

Their website introduces them perfectly:

Our goal is to create a platform to work together on, doing one off and short lived events, promoting a new approach to British cooking, one that focuses on small producers and building relationships with them, one that brings vegetables to the fore, one that emphasises collaboration and helpfulness over secrecy.We are young and ambitious, have worked in some of the best kitchens in the world,and now we want to do things our way.

My first knowledge of The Young Turks was their pop up at the top of a a soon-to-be-demolished
office block in Canary Wharf. I was sat on a table of variously fun, intense, hilarious, knowledgable and eccentric strangers. The incredible food, beautiful waitstaff, excellent soundtrack - and possibly also the wine - helped everyone to become the greatest of friends.

With this in mind I could not wait to get to the Young Turks Ocakbasi evening at Frank's Campari Bar.
I believe an ocakbasi is a Turkish grill. And Frank's is a bar on the tenth floor of a rundown car park in Peckham.

The food was incredible, from buttermilk fried chicken, to the wonderful BBQ pork and molasses, and the tender grilled leeks with scallop, it was all awesome.

Here's a video of the evening. My identity is kept underwraps throughout, but if you don't blink at 2:10, the cocktails that rush by were drank my me!

THE YOUNG TURKS + THE CLOVE CLUB @ FRANKS CAFE AND CAMPARI BAR from Thomas Whitehead on Vimeo.

My responsibility as a writer

2011-09-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Having recently started a new job, I've been reading some of the books in our company library, like the wholesome geek I am. One of the books, Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky, has a brilliant line in it (which of course I have spent half the evening looking through the book and can't find - when will these books come with ctrl+F capabilities?).

The gist of it is this; more and more people are writing on the internet, more and more pages are being made, so if you're going to write something you have a responsibility to make it good, more that good, to make it DO GOOD. To enrich lives in some way. Such examples sited are PickupPal and Ushahidi

This really spoke to me. Yes, I want to create something of value, something lasting, something people can revisit again and again. Something which is doing a public good. To that end, I would like to announce my side project:

FUCKYEAHHOTCHEFS

Don't thank me, no really. I guess I'll learn to enjoy contributing...

One entry so far, but what an entry. Any suggestions, do let me know.

Tooting Foodival

2011-09-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

Tooting's MP Sadiq Khan gives great Tweet. OK he's not the madness or over sharing of some MPs. But I'm pretty sure he's never mentioned the words 'consortium', 'SME' (have I made that up), nor does he bore on about every vote and parliamentary movement. In fact his Twitter feed can be used as something of a (child friendly, multi-faith) guide to what's on in his constituency.

It was through Sadiq Khan's Twitter that I learnt about the Tooting Foodival, which was a one day celebration of the very small local food movement, of growing your own food and of other green initiatives.

Many people of Tooting had grown their own food and donated it to the Foodival, local restaurants had taken the food and created meals, and for £1 (or 50p if you brought your own plate and fork) you could sample the food.

There were also representatives from all sorts of groups I had no idea existed in SW17. Transition Town Tooting, two community gardening groups and bees! There was a stall for the community beekeepers in Streatham Cemetery, I even got to sample Kennington and Morden honey.

It was a really lovely idea, and really nice to see in Tooting. I even signed up a pledge that I'll bring food that I have grown to the Foodival next year. Seeing as the only thing I can grow in my garden is a over-exuberant vine, I wonder if they are any local restaurants are good with grapes...

Jamie- I mean James to take on Hospital Food

2011-09-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Yep, after Jamie's School Dinners apparently James Martin is to take on Hospital Food. Although it would be easy to mock James getting in on the act that Jamie's been doing for years. But actually it's quite touching.

James Martin was moved to take this on after seeing the food served to his grandmother in the last four months of her life in York Hospital. It's his grandmother, Marjorie, who inspired him to be a cook.

It's a five part series, and part one is on iPlayer now.

CHOPPED - British Invasion

2011-09-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

I have just rather enjoyed the Chopped British Invasion. Launceston Place's Tristan Welch, Street Food's Jun Tanaka, star of a upcoming Food Network new host Andy Bates and the "I've got three TV shows" (where? - although she was ace) Lotte Duncan. It's a cute little show, none of the British chefs took it too seriously and the ingredients were suitably absurd - were those Wotsits?!

Here's a very cute video of outtakes of the promo video:

Bompas and Parr

2011-08-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

Bompas & Parr (USA) from Beck's Green Box Project on Vimeo.

BBC Good Food website

2011-08-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love BBC Good Food website, it's got a great search, is a nice site and is not too cluttered. However this recipe really did make me scratch my head. Really WTF! Was there really any point to this webpage existing...

Jaffa Sorbet

Ingredients

Jaffa Cakes
orange or mango sorbet
raspberry sauce

Directions
Arrange a Jaffa Cake (a good low-fat choice) with a scoop of orange or mango sorbet, and drizzle with a little bought raspberry sauce.

The Vintner

2011-08-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

I think I'm in love. He's hunky, 41, olive-skinned, tasty and he - um - goes the distance.... He's Hugo, the delightful Citroen H Van that I had the pleasure to meet at the Real Food Festival at the South Bank as part of the Vintage Festival.

Hugo belongs to Chelsea wine company The Vintner, who sell some rather ace wines that was just lovely, even my uneducated palate was extremely taken with the proscecco.

More from The Vintner:
"We’ve limited our main Vintner list to just 100 wines, all below £25 a bottle including VAT. We’ve also got a fine wine list of just 10 wines, all mature, interesting, classic and very keenly priced. Both lists change often. New finds that rock our boat come on and good wines that we’re ‘resting’ come off – it keeps us excited."

And apparently my favourite 'wish-he-was-my-uncle' chef Rick Stein's son Charlie, and my favourite food blogger Barnes Cubed both work there too. Could this company get any better?
http://www.thevintner.com

Michael Ruhlman - The Making of a Chef

2011-08-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

I read the most amazing book on my holiday. It is an incredibly in depth book about a journalist taking classes and learning about the CIA. That's the Culinary Institute of America. With almost the entire book having an almost healthy obsession with stock, pages and pages on baking the perfect loaf and superb detail of the courses a chef needs to undertake and the huge amount of back breaking work and commitment a chef needs to put in order to graduate. The CIA sounds like an amazing place, running it's own restaurants via the cheffing courses and turning out incredibly knowlegable, passionate chefs every couple of weeks.

Michael Ruhlman writes a great blog - ruhlman.com, has written two more in this series as well as some fascinating looking technical books about cooking, although I worry their referring to American cups rather than grams would make it quite frustrating for a UK reader.

It's a fab book though, I'd really recommend it, I do wish Tooting Library had the rest of his books.

Bacon jam

2011-08-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

My lovely and talented triathlete-running, internationally-employed friend A Lister told me about eight months ago of her housemates and her creating the most amazing sounding condiment - BACON JAM.

Doesn't it sound awesome - bacon jam BLT sandwich, I'm definitely going to give it a go.

Check out these lovely pictures summing up how great bacon jam is, and here is an in depth guide.

Lisboa

2011-08-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from a simply awesome time in Lisbon. I'd like to think I immersed myself in a lot of local specialities. Portuguese tarts, seafood, goats milk cheese, piri piri chicken, Portugues sausage (enchidos) and Portuguese green wine. It was ace. I tried some seafood, but my fish phobia meant I had to draw the line at the local specialities, salt cod (bacalhau) and sardines. Maybe next time.

Cravendale

2011-08-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

I was sad when the Cravendale little people ad was axed. How could they top that? Well, I think they have with this gloriously weird new ad.

Cravendale - Milk me Brian - (2011) :30 (UK)

James from Masterchef's pop up

2011-08-02T12:08:00.000-07:00

With all manner of pop up restaurants, um, 'popping up' all the time, it was only a matter of time before someone capitalised on the idea and created a restaurant to allow anyone to create their very pop up restaurant for the night. Pipe Dream Restaurant has done just that. For a fee you can set up your own restaurant for the night and invite and charge guests. You have the option of the event being filmed, your own chef's whites for the occasion, and even having the bar open afterwards for a wind-down piss-up.

One of the brave few to take the challenge on is recent Masterchef finalist, tattooed carpenter James Perry, who'll be cooking a British selection in the Southgate restaurant on 3rd and 4th October. Hope it goes well, I don't suppose he'll be going for the video option...

Mexican Food Made Easy - Chorizo and Potato Quesadillas

2011-07-31T14:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend was my little sister's birthday. We celebrated with her boyfriend's famous Spaghetti Bolognaise. Cooked over two days, with three types of meat, he's fiercely secretive about the recipe. But believe me, it's incredible. So intensely rich and tasty. I begged to take some home and had the most comforting meal that evening of the spaghetti mixture cold on seeded toasted bread.

Today though I thought I'd use what bolognaise mixture there was left to create a few meals and make it go as far as possible. So, inspired by many trips to the venue, I make a very Pizza East inspired mushroom, pepper and bolognaise pizza.

I also used up the rest of ingredients to make another dish inspired by a much loved London restaurant chain - Wahaca. Having seen Tommi Myers in Mexico on Channel 5, giving away the secrets to her London restaurant's famous dish chorizo and potato quesadilla, I thought I'd give that a try with the rest of the spaghetti sauce. I do wish I'd read the recipe and realised the potatoes were meant to be boiled before hand - it took hours to fry them from raw! Ooops.

I used chapattis rather than tortillas, as they seem to be identical but cheaper and available in wholemeal. It will be a great lunch and I seem to have made enough for at least the whole week.

Parmesan Pencil

2011-07-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

As seen on Wired UK, it's a pencil, but where the wood should be is parmesan, and where the lead should be is either truffles, pesto or chilli. So wonderful!

Man V Food

2011-07-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

At the moment there's one show really cluttering up the schedule on BBC Good Food channel, like fat cluttering up arteries. The anti-food show, a paean to gluttony and often downright disgusting food. It's the favourite show of Mr Geeky Tom. It's Man V Food. And if I'm honest, it's extremely watchable.

When my hero and yours Anthony Bourdain was asked about the show in November of last year he said:
"It’s a little morally quesifying.* I think Adam Richman of "Man vs. Food" is enormously likeable and a compelling character who really makes that show interesting, but I fear for his life! I mean, the guy must really like T-shirts."
"I find him very likable, but I’m kind of horrified by the show."

(quesifying - were it a word if might possibly mean 'to make sick')

See what Bourdain means here:

Happy Birthday Benito's Hat

2011-07-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

Today marks the birthday of the AWESOME Benito's Hat.

To celebrate they are selling £3 burritos, £3 beer and £3 cocktails at each of their three Central London locations.

I might try and go three times...

http://www.benitos-hat.com/PDFs/Benitos_Birthday.pdf

Best page on the internet

2011-07-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

Everything I love about food blogging, obsessing over food and the way the internet can highlight such obsessions has come together in one amazing blog post. Taking the simple and cheap, and much maligned beefburger, The War on Cookbooks has posted about his incredible mission to create the perfect burger. I"ll never be as good a cook, I'll never write as well, and I'll never be able to create such a perfect post. What are you doing reading this, when you could read THIS

http://www.thewaroncookbooks.com/the_war_on_cookbooks/2011/06/the-evolution-of-the-humble-burger-project-psmith.html

Dinner by Heston

2011-07-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

I am very excited. In less than a month I'll be trying out the meat fruit and tipsy cake at Heston's Dinner. Mooted as the most exciting restaurant opening of 2010, I've been really looking forward to going, and after a couple of false starts, it looks like August Bank Holiday weekend is the time!

Rick Stein's Spain

2011-07-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

There is something so very comforting about Rick Stein. He will always remind me of cosy Sunday afternoons drinking tea and watching re-runs of his Seafood Odyssey, I know it off by heart.

This series, the same team head off to Spain in a camper van. You know exactly what to expect; Rick won't really know the language, he'll get a bit tipsy, flushed and giggly on a small amount of local brew, he'll go off on one about the death of local tradition and he'll add FAR too much salt to everything. He's always making mistakes, you get the feeling the producer and cameraman, who have been with him from the very start are half laughing with him, half at him and he seems quite out of place in most of the Spanish scenes. It's utterly wonderful food television and I won't miss a second of it!

Table crowd v Food Host

2011-07-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd draw your attention to two brand new food community websites that I've recently been made aware of. Both of them encourage people to get together and eat with strangers, both are interesting for different reasons.

The first to launch is Table Crowd. I was told about it in hushed tones, that a table is booked at a good restaurant, and then you can sign up and join a table. Sounds ace, it's in closed beta (ie, it's still being tested and the techies are only letting a few people in to start with) so I signed up and a few weeks later was invited to join a table at a Portuguese restaurant that night. Unfortuntely (or fortunately, depending on what you're into) it didn't take much research to see that Table Crowd is a dating site registered by the same people who run the really-quite-full on Click Together, who run nights almost exclusively in Funky Buddha, from what I can see from their website. Petrifying.

Another site, that looks interesting, based on the pitch document, although somewhat complex is Food Host. Let's see if I can understand this based on their recent press release, and purvey the meaning to you:

People to create and share local dinner parties in their area. Book a place in another dinner party by purchasing a credit which allows them to receive the host’s contact information, or set up a brand new event for others to join in. Ratings and reviews are given afterwards.

There are two formats to choose from, a “Series” or a “One off”
Series (otherwise to be known as Come Dine With Me) : everyone takes a turn in being the host and the guest at the parties.
On off : Themed night where everyone contributes something different i.e. drinks, dessert, or entertainment.

Prices may be around £2 per booking for each user, whether it is a “Series” or a “One off”.

Mexican Food Made Simple

2011-07-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

Masterchef winner Thomasina Myers, set up the Mexican restaurant Wahaca in Covent Garden. The fresh, small plates of zingy, healthy, refreshing Mexican food, beer and authentic juices created crowds out of the door and it took hours to get a table. She has now launched three more Wahaca restaurants in London and it looks unlikely to stop at four.

Tommi has appeared in a few shows in the past, A Cook's Tour of Spain and the slightly unconvincing Wild Gourmets. Now she's got ger own show on Channel 5, Mexican Food Made Simple.

Having been to Wahaca a few times, I am enjoying seeing how she makes the famous chorizo and potato tortillas and guacamole, and it's very interesting to see just how cheaply and simply this can be made at home.

http://www.channel5.com/shows/mexican-food-made-simple

Bourdain in London...

2011-07-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

A recent tweet from Anthony Bourdain... I wonder where he's having lunch tomorrow - *dons stalker coat*.

@NoReservations
Anthony Bourdain
Perfect time to hit pubs in Soho. Empty. Sunday afternoon.
via Twitter for iPhone

Upcoming Pop Ups

2011-07-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here are details of a couple of interesting looking pop up restaurants.

Kirin Ichiban pop up Yatai

3rd and 8th August at the Truman Brewery’s Dray Walk Gallery in Brick Lane.
Serving Japanese deep fired skewer delicacies - kushiage, with a bottle of Kirin beer for around £5
Yasuhiro Mineno (ex head chef of Nobu) and Shinya Ikeda are the joint owners and Head Chef of Yashin sushi & bar and founders of a yet to be opened Kushiage style restaurant in Central London in 2012
Some of the options are pork with Japanese Worcester sauce, marinated lamb with saikyo miso, asparagus with sea salt and lemon, pickled tomato and slightly hot green pepper with lemon.
To book, click here.
http://www.kirinfirstcut.co.uk/how-to-book.php

Lancaster House

From July 27-31st, Lancaster House, where The Kings Speech was filmed, will be transformed into a pop up restaurant and terrace bar.

Hosted by Jamie Grainger-Smith, the founder of the eco-restaurant consultancy, Think Eat Drink showcasing sustainable food and drink.

Lancaster House
(Entrance via Queens Walk Footpath)
St James's
London
SW1A 1BB

Book here: (or just show up to eat on The Terrace)
http://www.startuk.org/events/the-start-pop-up-sustainable-restaurant-book-now.aspx

Jelly Good Show

2011-07-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

Selfridges on a Saturday afternoon is not normally somewhere I would choose to venture. This weekend, however, I managed to secure a ticket for celebrated 'Jellymongers' Bompas and Parr's latest project: Truvia Voyage of Discovery.

To celebrate the launch of sweetener Truvia, Sam Bompass and Harry Parr flooded the roof of Selfridges to create a green boating lake, complete with rowing boats, a waterfall and a secret island complete with bar. We tried Truvia cocktails, Truvia on strawberries and even munched on a Truvia plant - chomping on the sweet leaves certainly freaked people out in the pub afterwards.

The boating lake, despite looking quite calming in photographs, was actually similar to being on a rollercoaster, not knowing whether we might over-balance and tip in at any moment. It was a really fun, despite accidentally soaking myself and my co-rower with the green water.

(Image by @toastmaster)

Anthony Bourdain - Medium Raw

2011-07-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

I joined my local library last week. What a revelation. No longer do you get a library card, or a date stamp. Who knew? Now you have a key ring and you hold all your books at once over a certain part of the electronic desktop and as if by magic, the book is scanned and you can go. I've already managed to read three books in my long standing challenge to read every book in the Guardian top 100 novels ever written. I popped in at the weekend to renew some books and what was the first thing I should spot but Anthony Bourdain's Medium Raw.

It's a direct follow up to his original book, Kitchen Confidential. The original novel was angry, heated, rude and pretty sexy. Bourdain's calmed down at bit since the heroin-taking, coke-addled, cheffing and shagging opus. He's become a dad. He's done those things he said he never would, settled down, stop cooking, become a TV personality, he's EVEN been on Food Network.

It's a fabulous book, I love that he praises and references some of my favourite food people, Michael Ruhlman, Fergus Henderson and David Chang of Momofuku. He also criticises food bloggers and food critics - especially in the UK, for the very nature of the build them up and knock them down, or go to a new venue, tell everyone about it and them hate it because it's too successful. He also defends chefs, like Gordon Ramsay, who put their name to a restaurant but are not present to cook at it.

It's quite American, so some of the names - Alice Waters and Alan Richman - I had to look up on Youtube (Alan Richman may be a c*nt, Anthony, but he has an incredible plastercine face).

Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce

2011-07-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently started a new job, that I'll probably share more about once I get to grips with what it's right and proper to share, and what it's better to not blab on about on the internet.

Ever since my first job on websites, ten years ago, Malcolm Gladwell has always been someone whose writing - even the very examples he uses, are reused and rehashed and used to prove points in meetings across London web agencies. From Tipping Point and talk of hipsters and hush puppies, to Blink and speed dating, to what makes a genius in his book Outliers; he's practically a pin up. Heck when he comes to London, Popbitch announce how to get hold of tickets.

It was with great pleasure then, that - after being recommended the TED talks by work for inspiration - here is Malcolm Gladwell talking about happiness, choice, and some of the things that my new job will have me thinking about a lot more - advertising, research, and marketing people what they want - by talking about spaghetti sauce.

El Bulli - The Movie

2011-07-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

I cannot wait to see this. El Bulli seems like a truely magical place.

Omelettes

2011-07-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

I'm reading the new book by Anthony Bourdain. Full of bile and anger, as ever, I"m sure I'll be mentioning his book a lot in future. However one of the things that he said is that he has no respect for anyone who cannot make an omelette. So into the kitchen I went to make the most basic of plates. One you can see any number of hugely successful and well known chefs ruin every weekend on Saturday Kitchen.

It's easy really isn't it.

Here's two nice videos I watched whilst feasting on my three egg and cheddar omelette and homemade coleslaw

Buttery Bass

2011-06-29T04:26:00.001-07:00

Jamie's 30 Minute Meals - Piri Piri Chicken

2011-01-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

Rachel Allen's new show

2010-07-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

It looks like Rachel Allen is set to present a new cookery show.

Found on The London Foodie

"Cactus TV is looking for people who love to cook and enjoy hosting dinner parties for friends. In each episode, there will be one host who will be holding a dinner party for between 5 and 8 friends, and he/she will get one-to-one tuition from Irish chef Rachel Allen.

Rachel will show the host how to make a great starter and main course for the dinner party and then the host will be filmed replicating these dishes ready for the dinner party. An stylist will be sent to the host's home to jazz it up a bit for the party. Then later that evening, Rachel will make the dessert and get it delivered to your house. And it's as simple as that...

If you are interested in taking part in this new show, please contact Ali Dunworth on ali.dunworth@cactus.co.uk or by phone on 0207 0914737."

All Greek to me

2010-07-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

So Audrey's off to Greece in Corrie and Jamie's been to Greece in his recent and fab Jamie Does... As well as that I've finally discovered I like olives. Weird. (Apparently you have to eat 26 of them before you begin to like them, I must have finally consumed that many). Generally Greek food seems to be all I seem to be thinking about at the moment.

The final push to coerce me into trying Greek food was this beautiful post from Rachel Eats on making tabbouleh. I decided to give it a go. Along with Greek salad and lamb koftas It's not hard to see that the taboulleh had far too small an amount of herbs, and too much bulgar wheat. And goodness knows what I'm going to do with all the leftover bulgar wheat, but the meal was so tasty.

Masterchef with Ramsay starts tomorrow

2010-07-26T08:03:00.001-07:00

In America only for now. But here's a tasty taster promo...

Aaron, all is forgiven...

2010-06-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've been a big harsh about Aaron Craze and his food show on Good Food channel, but when this tweet popped up on my feed a few months ago I found myself eating my words. Terribly unhealthy, fried ham and cheese sandwiches, dipped in an egg. But my, so tasty. And the way they are displayed is the cutest.

http://twitter.com/MarketKitchen/status/9687571546

Adventures in food...

2010-06-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

It's been such a while since I posted and I have had quite a few adventures in food since I last wrote. Not least on my birthday weekend, which was a heady mix of beaches, sunshine, pear cider, fish and chips, stawberries, clotted cream and ice cream in Cornwall. The high point of the weekend was definitely finally making it to Padstow, after ten years of loving Rick Stein's shows on television.

Padstow is less pretty than the lovely St Ives, and more of a tourist rat-run, but still a very pretty town, with an incredible number of Rick Stein industries. A cafe - where we ate - as well as fish and chip shop, two shops, two restaurants and a cookery school.

I don't think I have ever had a nicer starter than the simple soft leaves, slow cooked figs, goats cheese, tomato and basil. Being embarrassingly not-that-into fish, I decided upon a steak which was also pretty darn good in spite of being given butter instead of garlic mayonnaise - I did think it was a bit yellow...

I also got to see the statue of Chalkie, Rick Stein's beloved little dog. Aww.

Jamie's Spanish Disaster

2010-06-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

After an all-day drinking session in the lovely Balham Bowls Club for no other reason than lots of friends suddenly seem to live very nearby, I am feeling the aches and pains of too much alcohol . This morning my body can't decide what it wants; spicy food, raw vegetables or alcohol-soaking fried food. So I attempt to appease my aching self with all three.

I received Jamie's latest book, Jamie Does... for my birthday, so I thought I'd give a couple of the Spanish dishes a try. To start, gazpacho. I loved the fresh, healthy, garlicky chilled goodness on holidays to Spain, so the meal already had a lot to live up to.

For my recent birthday, I also received a beautiful KitchenAid blender, and I've been desperate to use it. I probably should have read the instructions better. I didn't liquidise the soup adequately, so the gazpacho - although tasty enough being chilled and cooling and spicy and filled with healthy raw vegetables - was the consistancy of baby food. It's also extremely rare that I'd criticise one of Jamie's dishes, but this didn't seem as clean and healthy and tasty as gazpacho as I know it. I think I'm going to have to try a couple of recipes for this, because Jamie's just didn't hit the spot.

As well as the gazpacho the other dishes I tried from Jamie Does Spain were patatas bravas and spicy tapas meatballs. The tapas meatballs were a bit of a cheat as a certain Geeky Tom had made the mince mix the night before, so I just had to make the tomato sauce. The meatballs were a joy to eat, as were the patatas bravas, but they looks scruffy and not something I'd make if I had people coming over.

Final dish was not from Jamie but was very much in the spirit of fried veg. So the last fried vegetable dish I decided to try was Nigel Slater's courgette and feta patties. The hot courgette and feta sauce was so delicious when hot it was all I could do to stop myself eating it straight out of the saucepan. And on reflection perhaps I should have as frying them was an utter failure. They just would not hold together. After failing with the first two I decided to try and bake the top like a fritatta instead. However when I tried with a flourish to tip the patty out onto my plate all it did was burst out of it's grilled crust and return to liquid form. Rubbish.

So meatballs aside, the day was spent making failed meals that all ended up looking like minced up fried baby food. But I suppose I got my five a day.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh Dahl...

2010-03-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

I didn't watch The Delicious Miss Dahl - I went out for Mexican food. Judging by Twitter, I did the right thing...

GilesCoren: This Sophie Dahl show - what a crock of bogus, mendacious shite. What a sickening sham. The BBC should be fucking ashamed..

Gracedent: i want everyone to keep in mind that these pieces to camera were the best ones they could use. #sophiedahl
mmmm shlurpy burpy frothy wothy sweetie peepie pamper indulgence mmmmmmmm
she has never made this dish ever before has she?
never has one woman twaddled so long and so tediously about an open sandwich.
ah, the book deal. don't start me about the fucking book deal. #deliciousmissdahl #wouldneverhaveleftthefuckingslushpilewithoutyourlastname
the only tv chef in history that if you were invited to dinner at her house you'd eat beforehand as you've no confidence she can boil an egg
SHE MUST BE DESTROYED
I'm becoming a presenter on Top Gear. I've not passed my test, but they're going to CGI me in driving the car in post-production.

rvamarsh: Is it me, or is "The delicious Miss Dahl" almost exactly the same show as any recent Nigella effort?

surlaroute: Sophie Dahl's cookery show made me feel sick. Bring back Nigella please.

4magicboxes: Why the hell does Sophie Dahl have a cookery program and why should I care about her inane self indulgences?

Mediaevalman: Sophie Dahl. Nigella Lite. Awful.

EmmaK67: Just switched over to watch Sophie Dahl cook some halibut. Is it just me or is she actually boring HERSELF?

just a hunch but I'm thinking this new Sophie Dahl food porn show was commissioned by a man?

sugarmouseshop: Watching sophie dahl's food show. I feel so awkward on her behalf.

Apologies for the swears.

Edit - Oh there's more - the kitchen isn't her's, not that I have a huge problem with that. But Hugh and Rick don't need such tactics.
Also, this blog made me laugh... "is the worst food porn I have ever seen. It is about as arousing as Jamie Cullum." poor the Dahl.

Rose Gray

2010-02-28T15:03:00.000-08:00

Rose Gray, one of the two founders of The River Cafe, passed away today. I've always wanted to go to The River Cafe, the restaurant that Jamie Oliver worked in, and once let Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall go. It's such a shame that it's generally not until people pass away that you get the chance to find out about their inspiring and incredible lives. I had no idea that Rose Gray set up River Cafe when nearly fifty with no restaurant experience. Her obituary is in the Guardian.

As well as the iconic River Cafe books, you can also watch their show The Italian Kitchen on 4od here.

Within 10 minutes of episode one are, amongst others, recipes for:
Simple lemon parmesan pasta sauce
Anchovies mixed with olive oil and spicy bread crumbs
Ricotta and rocket pasta
It's well worth a watch.

It's been a while...

2010-02-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

Since I blogged for which I blame a rather too fun two months of 2010 so far. I've got a huge backlog of shows to blog about, restaurants I've visited, kitchen equipment I've "invested in", reciped books I've picked up and recipes I've messed up - I've also been sampling amazing street food in a different city.

Here is a brief round up of the TV shows I've loved and loathed...

Three Hungry Boys - Why oh why not just make a programme with Hugh in, I kept hearing his voice and thinking he would be on the show any second. He wasn't.

Coach Trip with Ginola - I finally watched it, it was amazing. I love Ginola even more.

Iron Chef - It's like baseball but with cooking, it's Ready Steady Cook if it had American sports reporters talking UBERFAST over the top of it, rather than Ainsley Harriott bumbling about. I love the made up words too "Beautiful doneness on that steak" Doneness??

Delia Through the Decades - oh wasn't Delia great? Just like Julia Child was great, and Elizabeth thingy, they were all mavericks, unorthadox and ground-breaking in their own way. It's just because they got old, we think they're old-fashioned old bats. They're ace. All of em, so there.

Masterchef is back! On Thursday! They're starting with an hour and a half long show, so it looks like they'll be messing with the schedule all series - is nothing sacred?

Delia in the sixties, Bourdain and cocaine and Ramsay on Masterchef

2010-01-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

Did you watch Delia last night? Wasn't it fab! I will be sampling some of her recipes through the ages here on this blog very soon.

In the meantime, I've written a few blog posts for AOL TV... You can see them by clicking on the titles below

Delia through the Decades

Anthony Bourdain burns six tonnes of cocaine for No Reservations

Gordon Ramsay heads to US with Masterchef - coming soon

The Restaurant Goes...Wrong

2010-01-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness. Why did the BBC even bother making The Restaurant this year? Perhaps they should have renamed it, so that viewers would have known what a shadow of its former self it was. If they can call a new series of Masterchef 'Masterchef Goes Large', then perhaps this season's Restaurant should have been called 'The Restaurant Goes S__te'. There were fewer couples competing for fewer restaurants, there was only one episode a week instead of two, and no play-offs, where all the bitching and fun normally happens. The couples that were chosen to be on the show seemed less well chosen that ever before. Not one of the couples really seemed like they could win.

As it's absolutely not a spoiler any more, I don't feel too nervous about mentioning the winners. The two blonde winkers - nicknamed by Sarah Willingham, not me you understand - came across as really rather smug and quite annoying. And they didn't seem particularly like they either were able to - or for that matter wanted to, actually cook.

It seems I'm not alone in being a bit disappointed about the show. CatererSearch have some angry comments on their blog. And, in order to be balanced, you can also see what JJ has to say about winning because he's on Twitter. I'll be really interested to see what happens with their venture, and I of course wish JJ and James the best of luck.

Christmas presents

2010-01-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

I got some marvellous cooking related presents, that I already don't know how I have existed without. A MASSIVE mortar and pestle, that I love so much I use for everything. It's so huge and heavy, it's the equivalent of washing your clothes by rubbing them against a huge rock, and I am going to drop it on myself and break something when washing it up and rupture something, but I don't care, it's ACE. I also got a Jamie Oliver flavour shaker, which I am yet to use yet, but I'll be aping Essex's finest soon making a rub for my lamb roast tomorrow with it.

I've also received a couple of books, The collected writings of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall - Hugh Fearlessly Eats It All - see what he did there. And I'm now on to Devil in the Kitchen. Which is Marco Pierre White's attempt at an explanation about why he is such a w____r. Having read a lot of music biographies I found this uninspiring, badly written and repetitive, and not a patch on Anthony Bourdain's fiery autobiography Kitchen Confidential. It's put me off any more chef's biogs for some time.(Obviously I'm still going to post this image of him though!)

My final gift was the excellent Jamie's Italy - based on the show Jamie's Italian Adventure. Which is fabulous - but that's a whole other post.

Ten to try in 2010

2010-01-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

At the end of the month I'll be taking a trip overseas for a couple of days. So I've been doing some research into what foodie delights I want to sample whilst I'm there.

But I'm lucky enough to live in London all year round, which has so many restaurants so near to my work place. So I've had a think about some of the London foodie delights I'd like to try out this year.

1) Bahn Mi - Viet Baguette
Bahn Mi are Vietnamese sandwiches; French bread, pork or pate and veg. I got hooked on the idea of trying one after posts like this from the New York Times and this from The London Foodie.

2) Street food from Moro
A lovely Spanish restaurant known for its cookbooks serves cheaper food on the street.

3) Daddy Donkey
Trekking across to Benitos Hat on Goodge Street has become less a lunchtime habit more a quasi religion. So I definitely want to see just how Daddy Donkey compares, the menu is the same, but you get your food from a posho caravan over in Farringdon, simples.

4) Pho
Specialises in healthy steaming noodle soup that you combine at the last minute so everything's mega fresh and tasty.

5) Whitecross Street
I'dd never even heard of it until Essex Eater mentioned it, but it seems it's near my work and there's lots of good street food. One to try out.

6) Pizza East
So much has been written about Pizza East since it opened that I'm desperate to give it a try. It's a large, wood/industrial pizza place opened in the Tea Building in Shoreditch that does pizzas that have got lots of people excited.

7) Tooting High Street Curry houses
I have lived in Tooting for nearly four years, it's frankly insane that I haven't tried any.

8) River Cafe
The rest of the choices - Konstam aside it seems - are pretty obtainable and possible, but The River Cafe is another place that although I have booked and raring to go, I've still never made it over the threshold. At £30 a main course it's certainly one for a very special occasion, but if you write a blog about TV Chefs and TV programmes it seems ludicrious to never have visited the restaurant where both Jamie and Hugh started their careers. Maybe I'll start a Paypal fund in the right hand column and accept donations...

9) Westminster Kingsway College Restaurant - The Vincent Rooms
Can you believe that I lived opposite this catering college for years and never went in. Even though Jamie Oliver (again) and er, Antony Worrell Thompson trained there. Roast Sirloin of Beef, Herb Yorkshires, Roast Potatoes, Creamed Cabbage and Bacon, Glazed Chantenay Carrots, Horseradish Cream, Watercress & Jus - £9.50??
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/21/vincent-rooms-brasserie-review

And ten... I'm leaving open for now. I know there will be quite a few eateries that I will discover over the next few weeks and months that I'll be wanting to visit. I'm not going to post up reviews on here - that's not what this blog is about, but I think I'll keep track of what I eat and where on Qype.

Last year's Foodie Highlights
1) Sticky Toffee Pudding at Gordon Ramsay's York and Albany. Twice!
2) Benito's Hat. A lot!
3) Bacon and Marmalade sandwich from Oliver Rowe's restaurant Konstam - takeaway
4) Franco Manca Pizzas - everyone raves that they're the best pizzas ever, although to be fair, we were so bloody freezing when we tried them I can't really comment.
5) The Rebel Dining Society's inaugural secret dinner

Happy New Year!

2010-01-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Twenty Ten. It's been a while since I posted, I've gone a bit awol, it's the usual end of the year illness and mad rush of the holiday season.

Rest assured I watched every single Christmas food show going, except F Word, which I can't really bring myself to watch. Surprisingly I could not stand Rick Stein's Christmas Odyssey, it was obviously a last minute rush of cobbled together old rubbish from his quite-below-par-anyway Far Eastern Odyssey. I really liked the Hairy Bikers 12 Days of Christmas, a nice format, really warm presenters and lots of interesting recipes.

Jamie's Family Christmas was very sweet, although who on earth decorated that house really needed to know when to stop - one false move and one of the ever encroaching HUGE paper decorations could have made the whole place go up in flames. Jamie's sister's children stole the show with their jelly impressions.

Nigella was a notable absence from the schedules, but thankfully Delia was on hand to front her first Christmas food show for 14 years. Nothing made me feel more Christmassy than seeing Delia stirring the cake on TV, you could almost smell the rich fruit and booze.

Unfortunately I didn't replicate any of the majesty of our Delia. We went to my auntie's for Christmas dinner. She kindly acknowledged my novel interest in what she was doing in the kitchen by allowing me to light the Christmas pudding, unfortunately I didn't quite get the hang of it, and managed to set the top off the aga on fire, and the pudding remained flame-resistant. Humbug!

Strawberry pie from Jonsi and Alex (Sigur Ros)

2009-11-24T13:25:00.000-08:00

Well hello there, apologies for the silence for so long. I've been laid up with the dreaded swine flu, as well as both kidney and chest infections. Vileness indeed.

It seems to be that time of year when everyone starts thinking of their favourite albums and singles of the year. One of the best early list I have seen is Rough Trade's top 60 albums of 2009. There are - of course - some albums that they have missed out that I would have put in. But there are also lots of albums that have passed me by. Some of them - Local Natives and Atlas Sound - I'm so glad to discover before the year is out. Another such band is Jonsi and Alex, the side project of the singer from Sigur Ros.

Whilst digging around finding out about these bands I found the lovely Jonsi and Alex doing a little cookery demonstration, of a strawberry pie. Do take a look, that is as long as you are not too worried about hygiene. There is a lot of licking of fingers, blowing in bowls to clean them and yes, that does seem to be a rabbit in the pie dish...
Jónsi & Alex Recipe Show - Raw Strawberry Pie from Jónsi & Alex on Vimeo.

The F Word returns

2009-11-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

The F Word returns tonight. I've written a post about it for AOL's TV blog here:

http://www.aoltv.co.uk/2009/11/03/tv-dinners-the-f-word/

I also noticed this video of Marco Pierre White cooking for Albert Roux which features a very young Gordon Ramsay helping White with his ravioli. More here.

Also...this is Marco Pierre White back in his prime. I'm adding Devil in the Kitchen to my Christmas list.

I cook a Masterchef dish

2009-11-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

no, not that one... I'll have to get a bit more brave before I attempt Steve's Masterchef The Professionals winning dish - even if he did simplify it for This Morning.

No, as I mentioned in the previous post about Masterchef winners and runners up, where are they now? Lots of the people who have featured in Masterchef have really nice blogs where they share recipes. One such chef is Andy Oliver, now at Nahm, The recipe is a roast aubergine and courgette salad with a yoghurt and tahini dressing. I added some grated carrot to it too. Here's Andy's original recipe and a photo he took.

I am only adding to my love of aubergine with this dish. I've tried so many different ways of cooking it and it's always great.
I seem to be eating quite a lot of aubergine. I suppose it's quite meaty and lasts for ages, which is good as I do tend to go out quite a lot and leave things festering in the fridge. So far I have tried:

Aubergine and mushroom curry, which is so simple and something I make very often.

Baba ganouche - it's roasted and skinned aubergines whizzed up with lemon juice and yoghurt to make a dip. It even got it's own gag in episode one of this series of Peep Show.

Aubergine, mozzarella and bacon bake (or slug, as my cousin called it)

Saint Hugh's Ratatouille

Or just sliced and grilled. But I still haven't made the dish that most people think of when they think of aubergines - Aubergine alla Parmigiana or Melanzane alla Parmigiana. It looks amazing.

Sunday Lunch - the good, the band and the X Factor

2009-11-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

Come Dine With Fe and I have just spent a total of seven hours in the kitchen. With notable and natural pauses to watch When Fearne met Peaches and X Factor, we toiled over a hot stove - and mostly over a kitchen sink it seems, so much washing up! But we made a feast and managed to use up loads of ingredients we had leftover, including 1.5kg of pumpkin.

We started off with spicy pumpkin soup, which was adapted from a recipe from BBC Good Food but we added a little bit of chilli powder - this chilli powder is loads stronger than the last pot I used which meant the soup packed a lot of punch. I also removed a portion of stock before blending or else the soup would have been too watery. All in all it was a success though.

Next on the menu was a full roast, with a joint of beef we rescued from the depths of the freezer and the duck fat for the roast potatoes and Yorkshire puds saved from the duck legs earlier in the week we made a surprisingly successful attempt at our first roast. The roast potatoes were perfectly roasted and fluffy, the Yorkshire puddings looked really professional and tasted great and the extra stock from the soup was used to make an incredibly tasty gravy. I think my gran would have been proud of my roast, which is some going.

After a pause for X Factor, we then made a halloween pumpkin cake. The cake looked great as it went in the oven and rose well. The comments on the recipe said it needed cooking for 45 minutes rather than 30, so we were prepared to cook it til a skewer was clean.

And that was when our trouble really began.
We were way overkeen and turned the first cake out on to the cooling rack too early. Which meant half the cake stayed in the tin and the other half ripped apart on the cooling rack. The bit that did make it on to the cooling rack was so moist it starting sinking through the metal bars of the cooling rack, effectively cut into slices by the metal bars of the cooling wrack. Rubbish.

Then we tried to ice it..
It was a total disaster. We tried to get cream cheese from the local shop, but as the majority of visitors to our local store are Polish, all the dairy products in the shop are in packaging written in Polish. So we struggled for ages trying to work out which was the cream cheese, amid the yoghurt, cream and vegetable spreads, twice getting all the way to the counter before turning back. What we eventually bought was sour cream...

Maybe it was because we used sour cream, maybe I added too much butter, who knows, but the icing separated terribly, making it look gross, it also tasted dreadfully of margarine. I kept adding more and more icing sugar and mixing it more and more heartily in a forlorn attempt to thicken it up, but nothing worked.

I don't know why, maybe it was that we were quite exhausted by then but we decided to plough on and add the "icing" to both cakes anyway, ruining the soft, moist and gently spiced caked with a vile separated yellow oily devil-icing. What a mistake. We now both feel a little bit sick.

Even if the icing was a disaster and we ruined two perfectly tasty cakes. At least we have amazing leftover roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings for the rest of the week.

Saint Hugh's Ratatouille ( care of RGB )

2009-10-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

Mr Barnes of Barnes introduced me to this marvellous ratatouille recipe via his blog Barnes Cubed. It is originally from the recipe book of utterly lovely TV Chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. Or as Mr B likes to call him, Saint Hugh.

The recipe calls for you to cook all your vegetables in separate pans, which initially sounds like utter madness, think of all the washing up? It does mean however, that you have a bit more control as you can turn off the pans individually once each vegetable are cooked. Which to a novice like me is most useful. Prevents burnt onions, which seems to be the main flavour in most of my soups. Plus you need to put a garlic clove and herbs in with each pan, so the lovely garlic-herb flavourings still run through the whole dish. (I nearly used the word infused then, but stopped myself just in time.)

Another good thing about using so many pans is you can make absolutely loads of it and have it on the side of with all manner of dishes. And it's got loads of veg in, your five a day on a plate, surely?

So over the last week I have eaten Saint Hugh's ratatouille in the following ways...

Ratatouille with roast leg of duck and streamed broccoli (see above, terrible photo, I will never be a food stylist, that broccoli looks like the Loch Ness Monster on the plate).

Ratatouille with salmon and sweet potato fish cakes and steamed broccoli

and finally

Ratatouille on granary toast with lemon infused (infused? DAMMIT) grilled halloumi

and there's still a load in the freezer. Massive win. Thanks RGB.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween, I'm going to spend the day running around trying to assemble the props in order to try and make myself look like a nine year old boy that no-one knows anyway. It's Max from Where the Wild Things Are - or as it's delightfully called in France - Max et les Maximonsters. The soundtrack is amazing too.

I'm also going to try and make some Halloween inspired food. But what?

Halloween always makes me think of being a Brownie and bobbing for apples which got me thinking of trying to make some Apple Turnovers.I found a recipe here, found via Design Sponge.

Also, I'm going to have three pumpkins worth of pumpkin pulp (is it even called pulp? What is it called? Anyway I'm drawn to this Pumpkin tray bake cake, as I have most of the other ingredients and it looks pretty simple and has lots of positive feedback.

Will take some pictures if I manage to make either tomorrow. Definitely no picture of me dressed as Max though.

Some more Halloween inspired blurry iPhone snaps after the jump, (although why you would want to bother I'm not sure.

A bit obsessed?

2009-10-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

There was a point today where I worried a little about myself.

It was just as I sat down to watch Julie and Julia, (a film about a New Yorker hitting thirty and her food blogging obsession). I made myself comfortable, still full from the rather extravagant lunch break I took at Gordon Ramsey's Boxwood Cafe. I was also carrying a Good Food Channel canvas bag, in which were the remnants of home made banana bread I had taken into work.

As the trailers flashed up my mind drifted to whether I could feasibly get to the Slow Food market and demonstrations in my lunch break on Friday without being missed at work, which then made me wonder when exactly was that butchery course that I had booked myself on the previous day?

Further examples are all too easy to mention... In the last week I have done a Nigella, (get up in the night to have a little bit more of the Banana Bread I cooked earlier). I have become Nigel Slater-style obsessed with cooking dishes with apples and figs whilst they are still so plentiful and cheap (in season, I believe it's called) after missing out on masses of cheap corn on the cob last month. I have also saved duck fat to make the perfect roast potatoes on Sunday - Nigella again.

I am really, really enjoying learning, thinking and writing about food and food TV. I just hope I'm getting enough of it down on here to avoid boring my friends and work colleagues too much.

Now is there a Channel 4+1 channel these days so I can watch the Big Chef Little Chef follow up programme...

"Firing Blancs"!!

2009-10-28T15:00:00.000-07:00

You have to hand it to the editor of the AOL TV blog, he's a headline genius. In my AOL post this week I get very excited about the return of The Restaurant. I've very very naughtily managed to watch the first two episodes (well it saves other people spoilering them for me as I'm out). I can tell you therefore with complete authority that it's ACE!

Anyway, here's my AOL Food TV blog post for this week...

http://www.aoltv.co.uk/2009/10/28/tv-dinners-october-28th-november-3rd/

Food Bloggers Photography Course

2009-10-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

On Friday I went along to a food bloggers photography course.

It is such a wonderful idea, I found out about it from Twitter. It’s run by Chris Windsor and A Forkful of Spaghetti held at the lovely Scandinavian Kitchen on Great Titchfield Street. AScandinavian cafe, deli and grocery store in London where you choose from a smorgasbord of Scandinavian treats including hotdogs, meatballs and quite literally - a smorgasbord. (Smørrebrød is the literal translation and means open sandwich).

We sat for an hour and learnt some very useful basics, including lighting tips. Then food was brought out and we got to tinker and take photos for an hour, testing out different camera speeds and white balance presets and testing professional lighting and using reflectors and stands. There was even a hotdog challenge where the course member who takes the best most attractive (and least suggestive?) photo of Scandinavian Kitchen’s hotdogs wins a meal for two. Here are my attempts.

The interesting thing is I can now clearly see all the mistakes I made on the day, not checking the framing of the plates, not being careful enough with the background, not taking my time and checking and rechecking the focus. But I think the course will really help me look at all this in the future.
I have just learnt to create a jump in Blogger (a "click here for more of this post", so there are a couple more pictures after the jump. These would all benefit from some tweaking on Photoshop, but it feels fairer to put up my unshopped work.

Smugness comes before a fall...

2009-10-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

A little while ago I was thinking if I could sum up my life in a nutshell, how things were for me at that precise moment, in – let’s say - 140 characters - I probably would have put:

The Queen is Dead on the record player, duck legs roasting in the oven, ratatouille on the hob, banana bread in progress...#smugtweet

I decided not to sent this message to twitter, it just seemed too smug. Surely the natural balance of things would meant that if I showed off in that way, something would bring me down a peg or two.

Within a minute of all this, it all went a bit wrong. I added an egg to the rather tasty looking banana bread I was making, and dropped whole egg into my mixer, shell and all! Unfortunately, rather than press the lever to lift the mixer up and allow me to fish out the shell, I turned the mixer on full, breaking the egg shell into hundreds of crunchy pieces and distributing it evenly around my cake mixture.

A short but intensive sifting of all the ingredients through a sieve, to catch and remove all the egg shell meant the banana cake was salvaged, but I learnt an important lesson about oversharing and smugness on the internet. I shall try and avoid in future.

The banana bread was EXTREMELY TASTY. I was lucky not to polish off the mix of mashed bananas, sour cream and cinnamon all in one go, before it even made it into the cake. Thank you to Fabi for the fabulous banana bread recipe.

A Masterchef dish

2009-10-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

I’m still reeling from all the excitement of the final of Masterchef the Professionals. It was a busy week for me outside food TV, and after getting a quarter final result spoilered by Twitter last week and the semi final spoilered by office colleagues on Tuesday, I decreed that I would make sure I suffered no more spoilers by ignoring Twitter each evening and watching the show as soon as I got in each night. Which meant I gamely started watching Thursday night’s final at 1am…

It’s been great though and the winner (no spoilers on this page iPlayer fans) was a worthy one. And I promise to try his winning dish, as seen here on This Morning (spoiler if you click on) ASAP.

Whilst I was casting my mind back on past series, I thought I'd take a look at what the previous year's finalists are up to.

2009
Mat Follas – Winner
Mat has fulfilled his desire to set up a restaurant near the sea in which he serves locally sourced, hearty meals with The Wild Garlic in Beaminster, Dorset. It’s getting rave reviews, including this from Matthew Fort. Mat writes an excellent blog and you can follow him on Twitter.
Mat's blog
Andy Oliver - Finalist
Andy was a returnee and yet made it to the final three. He has been on Market Kitchen but has recently started work at Nahm, a Michelin starred Thai restaurant in London.
Andy also writes a blog where he shares recipes and updates. I have even given one of the recipes a try. More on that soon!
Chris Gates – Finalist
Chris quit his job at Job Centre in the summer and has since appeared on This Morning. According to Chris' blog he is now working as a junior sous chef at a Gastro pub in Suffolk

2008
James Nathan - Winner
According to this Times article having served some stages (work experience posts) at various restaurants, James works at Michael Caines’ Priory in Bath. Which is the venue he got married years before. Aww
Jonny Stevenson – Runner up
Jonny is back in Northern Ireland working in a restaurant and has an agent for personal appearances.
Emily Ludolf - Runner up
Exciting young chef Emily went to Wadham College, Oxford University to read English. She has written articles on cooking for Delicious Magazine and a restaurant review column for the Oxford University magazine.

2007
Steve Wallis - Winner
The food TV geek in me was very excited to spot Steve pop up in the background of Great British Menu, helping with the banquet. Since then Steve has taken time out to travel and learn about food. His blog is fabulous and his photographs are an inspiration to any one keen on food or travel photography.
Steve's blog - The Urban Foodie
Ben Axford- Finalist
Ben ran a cheese shop, but now he is a full time food writer and consultant and also cooks at dinner parties. More here.
Hannah Miles – Finalist
As well as twittering Masterchef spoilers, Hannah also writes an entertaining blog and has published three books.
Hannah's blog

Coming soon…I try one of the recipes from Andy Oliver’s blog.

Rebel Rebel - Rebel Dining Society

2009-10-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I went along to the Rebel Dining Society meal. It was the first night of an event which will run fortnightly for two months. Get your name down, turn up and eat amazing food, selected by an ex-Fat Duck chef, and be part of the art and watch great bands.

You sit on long tables and could be sat opposite and next to anyone, it's held in a lovely space and everyone was very friendly and the food was ace. Here's the menu:

Squid and black bean soup with avocado and salsa

Pork belly, celeriac mash served with a cider reduction

Blackberry apple and almond cobbler served with whiskey and vanilla cream

http://www.therebeldiningsociety.co.uk/

What's on TV? Ask AOL!

2009-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a little bit of blogging for AOL at the moment, here's my latest post...

http://www.aoltv.co.uk/2009/10/13/tv-dinners-october-13th-19th/

Masterchef - Salad lyonnaise

2009-10-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Oh I'm still loving Masterchef the Professionals, (at least until The Restaurant comes back) even though I'm about four hours behind and it's oh so very repetitive, but some of the lines are excellent:
"It's just a shame his leeks are too long..."?!
Earlier this week chefs had to make a salad lyonnais as part of the classic recipe test. Egg and bacon salad? What's not to like? it looks great. Salad leaves with a red wine vinegar dressing, lardons, croutons and a poached egg. Sounds ace. I definitely want to give it a try.
There is an incredibly useful and in depth blog post over at The Five Star Kitchen with more than you would even need to know about salad lyonnaise.

This image belongs to tiny banquet committee, taken from Flickr under creative commons

EDIT : I made it last night - oh goodness, it was delicious. As simple to make as eggs on toast, but so much tastier, I really like the red wine vinegar with the leaves with the runny egg and salty bacon. Ooooh, I went a bit Gregg then didn't I? It was super tasty though, thanks Masterchef!

Also, I have my SLR back again and invested in a white plate, so maybe my food will start looking a bit less anemic and more presentable...

Konstam at the Prince Albert

2009-10-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Inspired by The Londonist's Sandwichist strand, I decided to take a short walk from work to Oliver Rowe's restaurant in Kings Cross for a lunchtime takeaway sandwich.

Oliver Rowe was in BBC show The Urban Chef, which followed his setting up his restaurant Konstam, whilst running his cafe and trying to source all the ingredients from within the M25. When I arrived, Oliver was in his chef's whites and was shaking hands and chatting to diners.

It was great that they do takeaway, I got to have a sit, read the paper and take in the beautiful surroundings.I had a lovely bacon and marmalade sandwich, which is making me hungry again just thinking about it. It was lovely and now I can't wait 'til I go there again for dinner.

I've only just got my SLR camera back from being mended, and I think the four week gap in snapping has affected me as I was too nervous to take any pictures, (for shame!). Next time though I promise to take a lovely, properly focussed shot rather than this rushed iPhone attempt.

Simon Rimmer's Dinners

2009-10-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

I managed to sneak a look at new show Simon Rimmer's Dinners recently. Starting Monday 12th October at 9pm on Good Food Channel. Simon Rimmer from Something for the Weekend visits the homes of ten families, some with specific dietary requirements, and teaches them how to cook simple dishes.

I had a go at the Tuscan salad, or panzanella. The recipe is here.

I was only making it for myself, using a kg of tomatoes and a whole loaf would have lasted me months, so I made up a much smaller amount. The preparation of this is quite a faff, I am quite sure I will never peel a tomato again. I also nearly set the kitchen on fire when I tried to burn the skin off the pepper, I ended up burning the stalk and not being able to hold the pepper and stinking out the kitchen. Such a strange recipe too, to go to all the trouble of peeling toatoes, but leaving the olive stones in seems plain weird. I left out the olives completely anyway, becuase they're evil.

Panzanella is really tasty, it tasted pretty good out of a tupperware pot on the train to Northampton, I can only imagine what home cooked Tuscan salad tastes like in the Italian sun with freshly grown fat italian tomatoes.

Jamie's Corn bread

2009-10-02T03:25:00.000-07:00

I am loving Jamie's American Roadtrip. Jamie's wide eyed enthusiasm really make the show. There are very few recipes and the show is much more about how food brings people together.

One of the few recipes mentioned in passing on this week's show was corn bread. I have been a bit obsessed with perfecting corn bread since Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares with the (sadly now closed) Mama Cherri's so had to give it a try.

I found the recipe on Jamie's forum and as he said on the show, corn bread is a cheap food, flour, cornmeal, salt an egg and milk. Corn bread is really simple to make, mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, combine and cook.

To be absolutely honest, this picture is very sympathetically shot, taking a picture from above means it's hard to see quite how flat and disappointing the 'bread' really is. I do wish I could get it to rise more. It's half bread, half biscuit and although tasty, I can't help feeling a little disappointed in my attempt at corn bread. Maybe Jamie's new book has a foolproof corn bread recipe.

Christopher Walken roasts chicken and pears

2009-10-01T07:33:00.003-07:00

No really....

Edit: Found via Twitter via Guardian Film blog here

Economy Gastronomy - Spicy Bean Quesadilla

2009-10-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

I got in last night very late and very hungry (/drunk) and decided that I had all the ingredients for Economy Gastronomy's spicy black bean quesadillas.

It was all a bit of a nightmare. Firstly I tried to defrost the flatbreads by laying them on top of the toaster and turning the toaster on, thus nearly causing an electrical fire. Then I accidentally put double the amount of black beans in the mixture, then I burnt my hand on the hob. The finished quesadilla looked quite impressive and tasted very nice.

I made such a mess though, I keep finding little black beans everywhere, in the fridge, on the floor, they're a bit like rabbit droppings and very unnerving.

Check out the picture of the left, it's like one of RoSPA's Hunt the Hazard posters - drunken cooking is so dangerous...

The Big Food Fight

2009-09-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

I had the good fortune to be invited along - well, to tag along with a friend - to the recording of the Big Food Fight a few weeks ago. See the blurry picture I took. I haven't posted it earlier as I didn't want to give away who's on the show too early - perhaps I was a little over optimistic about the quality of my photograph.

Some more unkind friends than I have suggested that this programme is the point where food programmes have "jumped the shark". for the sake of this blog if nothing else, I hope that's not the case.

The quiz is ably hosted by Sue Perkins and the laughs may not be on the scale of mock the week but it is interesting to see people like speed demon James Martin and Saint Hugh in the same room.

Which is the main failing of the show, it would be more interesting to have two of these chefs in a room talking to each other about food for half an hour, rather than a constructed quiz.

Korma Police

2009-09-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I wanted to cook a chicken korma in a homage to Keith Floyd, but I failed before I begun. Keith's chicken Korma involves chopping up a whole raw chicken. How would I that? What kind of mess would I get into? I mean, I've watched Economy Gastronomy, I don't want to waste a whole bird. I know, it's rubbish, and it's something I plan to master very soon.

So, instead I used BBC Good Food's chicken korma recipe, which used only chicken breasts. The korma needed garam masala, ground almond and yogurt. It was bloody tasty though. It could have used much more sauce, no rice and much less chicken. But take a look at it.

If it's any consolation to Keith, I drank a vat of white wine whilst making it - just in shot if you look carefully.

Economy Gastronomy

2009-09-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

So, today in the pub I tried to explain Economy Gastronomy in as few words as possible. I said... "It's just like Virgin Cooks, it's about cooking household, cheap meals and spending as little money as possible, and it has Allegra in, who I have a massive girl crush on."
All of this is true, but I can't help thinking I sold the show short. Compared to Virgin Cooks the contributors are well chosen, hot students, overspending parents and lovely kids.

I did take on board the learnings of Economy Gastronomy and used mince as my "bedrock dish" and made spagetti bolognase as my base dish and lasagne as my "tumble down". Wondering what I'm on about - well don't try looking on bbc.co.uk, but loads more ideas for mince tumble down here on, er, mumsnet.

I really want to create the spicy black bean quesadilla from the show.

From the archives: Cooking It

2009-09-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a quiet day so I had a look through Channnel 4's catch up archive to see what TV Feasts I had missed out on. I stumbled across Cooking It, with the dishy - chislelled cheekbones, brooding stare - Jun Tanaka.
Jun takes some seemingly random ingredients and gets a terrible cook to do something with them in 20 minutes, he then shows how to make a simple dish, and gets the contributor to cook over it over and over again. He then gives the dish more finesse, and adds a pudding or a starter and gets the contributor to create the meal in front of a panel of experts in competition with real chefs, Faking It style.
The way Jun teaches people is great. Jun seems funny and encouraging. It's also interesting to see who the contributors are, Paul Merrett from Economy Gastronomy and Jay Rayner, sometime Masterchef critic.

Jun Tanaka is Head Chef at Pearl Restaurant in Holborn, Central London

Masterchef: The Professionals

2009-09-23T03:26:00.000-07:00

It's back! The BBC announced back in July that they had commissioned another 300 episodes of Masterchef and they are rattling them out at a rate of knots on BBC Two's Masterchef The Professionals.
Forty five minutes a day, with an hour and a half broadcast on Wednesday, watching them becomes a bit of an occupation. The shows always seem that they're made for a 30 minutes transmission, and due to scheduling changes they are chopped up and are harder to follow. But that does that matter? I'm hooked!
John Torode has had some time off to promote his chook book, so in steps Michel Roux Jnr of Le Gavroche
. There's immediately added drama as cook chef per heat gets kicked out before even getting to cook for Roux.

Roux is a nice addition, a nice change from Gregg and John's Smith and Jones bellowing style, Roux brings some extra warmth and seems to care about the chefs.

The chef's themselves are brilliant, sometimes dim, often catatonic, always inarticulate. Some don't like The Professionals strand because all the chefs are unrecognisable, but I love it. Even though my favourites get voted off every time.

Saturday Kitchen recommissioned

2009-09-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

James Martin's just blogged on jamesmartinchef.co.uk to say that Saturday Kitchen has just got it's highest viewing figures ever. I wonder if that was due to people tuning to see if the chef showed contrition about his recent misjudged comments in the Mail on Sunday. Or even to see if the set was invaded by angry cyclists.

Either way the show's been commissioned for another two years.

Virgin Cooks

2009-09-22T03:24:00.000-07:00

As part of their 'Sorting out the youth' or Headroom strand BBC Three broadcast Virgin Cooks. In which two young people compete in cook offs in an attempt to teach them both to cook. The winner gets to host and cater a party for their friends. Well that was the theory. In reality the competition element was disbanded in three of the four episodes. New talent Gordon Young is a real chef and it showed, quiet, shy, straight talking - he looked like he didn't believe he'd got through the screen test even less than we, the viewer did.

The show highlighted some simple staple recipes as well as some lovely restaurant favourites, and the Headroom website has video recipes, which is a really nice touch. If I've ever brave enough to attempt fish, I would love to try the Fish Chowder and Paella. They both looked great.

Gordon Jones head chef at the Royal Crescent in Bath.

Keith Floyd

2009-09-15T05:14:00.001-07:00

It was with much sadness today that I see that Keith Floyd has passed away. It makes watching his Keith Meets Keith even more strange and difficult. It is the story of a man who has lived his life exactly how he wanted, who has stuck to his believes and ultimately who has died earlier, poorer and ultimately more lonely as a result. It was very much a programme of two halves, excess and bombast mixed with some sorrow and regret.

Let him be remembered for being a fabulous chef whose passion for food changed how many people cook and eat in the UK.

Keith on Keith, on tonight

2009-09-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

I have recently stumbled on the excellently written blog Chef Sandwich from journalist turned trainee-chef Lennie Nash. It's got all sorts of incredible stories about working in professional kitchens, including Heston's Fat Duck and Rick Stein's Padstow restaurants.

http://chefsandwich.blogspot.com/

Not only that, but it also brought to my attention the documentary Keith on Keith, where latter day celebrity-dad and general toad Keith Allen tracks down hard drinking chef and TV legend Keith Floyd. Lennie has an excellent preview of the show here.

Keith Meets Keith, Channel 4, Monday, 10pm

Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers

2009-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was very excitied to see Nigel Slater had a new show on BBC One, to almost no promotional.

The premise seems to be a little confused, yes he cooks 'simple' 'suppers', but beyond that it changes weekly. Basically Nigel Slater cooks and visits an allotment each week. This week there was the added aim of 'going off recipe' meaning all the erm, recipes he wrote in his recipe book were called 'freeform', such as his 'freeform trifle', boiled sugary fruit, bought sponge and bought custard. He peppered the show with "just use whatever you've got in your cupboard". Obviously Nigel's cupboard and mine bear very little resemblance, I somehow can't imagine him making a delicious supper with some mouldy garlic and crumbled rice cakes.

Which I suppose is the disappointment with this show. As a self confessed terrible cook who finds going off recipe all too easy, often with terrifying results. It is not at all helpful to be told to 'just do what you feel' - that is how I ended up with chopped ham and pasnip lasagne Nigel.

Nigel Slater's programmes have always been a thing of beauty and what a shame it is that I can't quite find the beauty in the first episode of Simple Suppers.

Also, is it just me, or are the graphics alarmingly similar to Jamie at Home?

Caribbean Food Made Easy - Not so much!

2009-09-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Caribbean Food Made Easy I attempted Levi Root's own Sunny Vegetable Patties. He cooked the patties in a Cornish Pie factory and took them out around town to see if the locals liked them. They got an overwhelming thumbs up from the Cornish locals and I have to say, although his looked a lot prettier than mine, they got a thumbs up from me too.

I was far too lazy to put the pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes and I made it in my beautiful Kitchenaid (any excuse to use it) rather than rubbing in the butter. So probably the pastry could have been better, but it looked pretty good.

The good thing about the meal is it's super cheap to make and you can make a big batch and freeze them before cooking. Also they're great to take to work for lunch.

But most excitingly, I just noticed a recipe go on 4Food for Cornish Cowboy Pasties - not featured in the show, but perhaps inspired by this week's very entertaining show featuring Wyoming cowboys. So
perhaps next time I can make Jamie's pasties.

Julie and Julia

2009-09-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

My first knowledge of Julia Child was when she was mentioned in The West Wing. An early and much loved celebrity chef, many Americans have grown up watching her cooking on PBS. So it's with much excitement that I'm going to watch Julie & Julia tomorrow, a new film intertwining the story of Julia Child and Julie, a - ahem - food blogger.

Here is the trailer...
(Starts 30 secs in)

Check out Julia Child's kitchen recreated at the Smithsonian Museum

This week on Twitter...

2009-09-07T09:15:00.000-07:00

Ace pictures of Jamie on Jonathon Ross's show. Mat Follas seems to be enjoying running his restaurant very much. Antonio Carluccio is visiting Carluccios and promoting his new book Simple Cooking, Thomasina's just finised her Wahaca book and Black Farmer has a knee operation. Heston's joined twitter too

http://twitter.com/HestonFatDuck

See more of your favourite chefs and shows on Twitter

On TV this week

2009-09-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

This week's highlights:

The Restaurant - Winners' Story
Monday 21:00 on BBC Two

Great Big Food Quiz
Starts Tuesday 8th September, 10pm on Channel 4

Caribbean Food Made Easy
Monday 20:30 on BBC Two (except Northern Ireland (Analogue), Wales (Analogue))

Jamie's American Road Trip
Wednesday 21:00 Channel 4

Economy Gastronomy
Episode 5
BBC 2
9 Sep 2009 20:00–21:00
Jenni believes that only the most expensive ingredients should go into her meals.

Virgin Cooks
Monday 20:00 on BBC Three
4/4. Cookery competition for novices sees Anton trying to cook just like his mother.

All other shows

The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain
Today, 17:15 on BBC Two
East Sussex
11/30. Si and Dave explore East Sussex, where they cook a hearty dish on Brighton beach.

Saturday Kitchen
With Rachel Allen
Saturday, 10:00 on BBC One

New! Come Dine With Me - Leicester
Weekdays, 5.30pm on Channel 4

River Cottage: Gone Fishing
Repeat, Tuesday 8pm on Channel 4

Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares USA
Repeat, Wednesday 9pm on Channel 4

Dolce Vito - Dream Restaurant
Thursday 8:30pm on Channel 4

Celebrity Come Dine With Me
Repeat, Friday, 7:30pm on Channel 4

Come Dine With Me - Aberdeen
Repeat, Saturday, 4pm on Channel 4

BBC Food programmes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/programmes/genres/factual/foodanddrink

Jamie's American Road Trip

2009-09-03T02:21:00.000-07:00

After nearly five years of campaigning shows including Jamie's School Dinners and Ministry of Food, Jamie Oliver is back with Jamie's American Road Trip.
The show is a real return in style to the classic Jamie's Italian Adventure. Rather than escaping the family in camper van around Umbria, this series sees an older, wiser family man more attuned to social issues.

The first episode sees Jamie take up residence in LA's Latino barrios, learning about Mexican food. His character is really allowed to shine throughout the show as he gains the trust and friendship of the people he spends time with.

The initial Mexican episode probably won't have people rushing to buy the book as each dish seemed to use a mass of ingredients to create very simple looking food - Huervos Rancheros (scrambled eggs with avocado, salsa and sour cream) a perfect example. But I'll still be getting the book and trying out some recipes as soon as possible. I can't wait for the creole episode. Maybe I'll finally crack baking well-risen corn bread.

Jamie's American Road Trip on Channel 4
Jamie's American Road Trip on JamieOliver.com
Buy the book
Read a review of the show on the Guardian

New show - Seeking a Rock and Roll Chef

2009-09-02T03:02:00.000-07:00

I recently found this post on the Celebrity Chef's UK site, it was posted back in July, so the chef could already be found.

Rock 'n' Roll Chef Wanted!!!!

What’s it all about? Productions and RDF Television (makers of Secret Millionaire, Ladette To Lady and Don’t Forget the Lyrics) have joined forces to develop a new TV features series – 'Rock 'n' Roll Chef'. The show host will not only be a brilliant and ambitious chef aged between 18 and 30, but he or she will also have a passion for music, bags of personality and be able to present in the style of a Rock God or Goddess! If you think you have all the right ingredients to star in this new series email roe@celebritychefsuk.com explaining why you think you could be the 'Rock 'n' Roll Chef’ along with a CV and up-to-date photograph. If successful an interview and screen testing will follow in central London.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to mention other shows of the calibre of Don't Forget the Lyrics and Ladette - don't RDF make Shipwrecked too? No matter what though, it's combining Rock and Roll, food and they're obviously after a sexy youth with attitude - it doesn't really matter if it's cheesey as hell, there's no question I'll be hooked.

Original post here

Caribbean Food Made Easy

2009-09-01T05:30:00.001-07:00