Category: food

Nigella-watch Part 3

Another week, another post about the ridiculous new series of Nigella Express.

This week’s episode reached the height of all absurdity, simply because of the horrible language the Ms Lawson uses when describing the food.

Lest it be forgotten, Nigella started out as a food writer, rather than a finger-licking kitchen siren, so it’s inevitable that some of her language will be a bit flowery, but I’m going to give you a couple of examples:

– “I just love the haunting brininess of the olives”

– “Mmm, I adore the resin-y rosemary”

Haunting brininess? Does that mean the olives wear white sheets over their heads?

It’s a shame, because her food is often pretty tasty, but this new series is light on good recipes and heavy on mannered looks to the camera, the incessant reminders that “I’m too lazy to chop up an onion” and the ridiculous segments where she “meets friends”.

I love Marco Pierre White on Hell’s Kitchen

Marco Pierre WhiteApparently, Hell’s Kitchen hasn’t been a big ratings success this time round, which must be a bit galling for ITV.

You can surmise that when they realised that uberchef Marco Pierre White had agreed to take on the celeb chef role, they would have been creaming themselves.

Yup, the ‘enfant terrible’ of chefdom agreeing to appear on a reality TV show on ITV. Scarcely believeable. I know I didn’t believe it.

But there has been very little screaming and shouting. He hasn’t spent his time telling the ‘celebs’ that they’re a useless sack of shits, or whatever other insult chefs use. Quite the opposite. In fact, he’s been encouraging and pleasant.

And ironically, for me that’s what’s made the series so compelling. Unlike Gordon Ramsay, who is on TV every other day, MPW has hardly ever been interviewed on TV (in recent years anyway). Consequently, I knew nothing about the way he spoke, or acted.

And all the fireworks (and headlines that produce ratings) that Gordon Ramsay brought to the show are absent. The biggest story has been Jim Davidson’s use of the word ‘shirt-lifters’ to describe gay men. Admittedly not very PC and Brian Dowling had every right to be aghast, but there are far worse terms in use.

And watching MPW cook is beautiful. Every night he creates something that he loves to eat. Dover Sole with mushrooms the other night, which looked divine.

So actually a great programme to watch if you genuinely like food, but terrible if you’re a normal ITV1 viewer.

Jamie O(li)ver

I watched the first of Jamie Oliver’s new series, Jamie At Home, last night and was sorely disappointed.

The concept is Jamie going back to basics and showing you simple recipes, based on ingredients you can grow in your back garden. First stop: tomatoes.

It sounds great, but it just didn’t ring true for a number of reasons.

1) Jamie’s home (or at least the grounds) is huuuuuuuge. He seems to have a curiously well-equipped outhouse, complete with a massive fridge empty enough to be able to hang a muslin-full of tomatoes to create tomato consomme. Something we can all do easily at home, right?

2) Then he casually produces the most fantastic collection of different-coloured tomatoes that he (or rather his gardener) grew in his, ahem, garden. We’re talking cherry, beef, and plum tomatoes, green ones, yellow ones, purple ones, orange ones – you name it, they’re there. Again, all something we could all knock up in our 10×6 space!

3) I know Jamie’s recipes are meant to look good, but the quality of the ingredients he uses pale against what most of us could find. His dried oregano looked quite remarkable and the size of the three, yup, you read that correctly, three bufala mozzarella balls he produces to make his “mothership” of tomato salads must have cost a small fortune.

4) The programme employs FOUR food stylists. Hang on, Jamie’s a chef – can’t he do his own food. Why does he need to employ four extra people to make his own food look good? Is he not confident enough?

I started to like Jamie after Jamie’s Kitchen and School Dinners, but this latest series looks too contrived. It’s too slick to look convincing and feels fake. The back-to-basics thing just doesn’t ring true, and the “at home” bit is a joke.

It’s ironic that Jamie has campaigned vigorously to keep his own privacy, yet happily broadcasts his latest show from his “home”. I don’t doubt he owns it, yet it doesn’t really look like his. It’s clearly been TV-ised.

Sorry, Jamie, the recipes might taste great, but the presentation doesn’t ring true. Time to go back to crusading, not basics!