Winter Warmers: Julie Goodwin has inspired Australia by rejuvenating the appeal of cooking no fuss family meals. In Julie’s new show, prepare for sumptuous meals that are easy to cook, delicious to eat and designed to impress.
“Oh, really?” was my first reaction to this TV guide fluff. “Inspired Australia”? Well, I guess she may have inspired Masterchef‘s Kate to think she had a shot at fame despite having a comically limited repertoire.
Glad are proud sponsors. Of course they are. This means we will probably get double the inspiration: program-Julie and commercial-break-Julie.
Opening credits, and it seems that Julie’s been taking giggle lessons from Poh. I’m not sure who has been giving her the inappropriate touching lessons.
Julie welcomes us to her kitchen to the strains of Guy Sebastian, which is worrying. I’m already fearful that the cooking won’t be enough to keep me awake. Soft-rock isn’t going to help any. What will she be rejuvenating into sumptuousness today? Find out, after the jump.
We’re kicking off with lamb shanks in a slow cooker. Snore. That’s not to say that I don’t adore lamb shanks, but I doubt there’s anybody who actually needs to be shown how to cook them, particularly when the person demonstrating is using a slow cooker. Next up: how to suck eggs. But before that, here’s a handy tip: if you ask your butcher to French them, you’ll get them knobless. Oh, I wish Reza Mahammad had said that!
There’s chopping, flouring, browning and patronising chyrons, giving us obvious facts like “slow cookers are great for winter cooking”. Who’d'a thunk? There’s no obvious product placement, though - Julie’s clearly not sponsored by Campbell’s, since her “beef stock” had been decanted into a pyrex jug. Oh, of course, she could have made the stock herself (bwahahahaha!).
We go to an ad break, but don’t fret! As predicted, we get more Julie in the Glad ad.
Back from ads and Julie is adding a Moroccan couscous dish to her lamb shanks, but… it’s one she prepared earlier. I call shenanigans. If she’s going to “teach” us how to cook shanks with couscous, I’d expect her to demonstrate the couscous for those sucked in to playing along at home.
I hope there’s a new Logie category for most drawn out tasting scene in a cooking show. The least Nine could have done was to add a backing track to try to add some drama to the shot of Julie trying to get some couscous and lamb on the fork and then linger over the mastication. Apparently the shanks with couscous are delicious.
For the crispy pork belly dish, we get a few bars of that awful “hey soul sister, ain’t that Mister Mister on the radio” song. Julie tells us that this dish has about four ingredients and is the simplest thing ever. I decide to make better use of my time by checking my emails. I mean, really. I thought cooking shows were to demonstrate techniques, not tell you that oven temperatures vary but that roasting something for a couple of hours will probably do.
Next up? Sexism! Gyton Grantley exclaiming “I’ve never done two things at once before! I’m a bloke!”. I hope this isn’t subtle preparation for a Tony Abbott government in two weeks time.
Julie is now going to make a soup with some lovely fresh ingredients. One of them is a dried risoni. Go figure. Gyton is helping out with this and is asking questions. His first question – do you use thigh chicken or breast chicken? – has Julie using that rather contorted construction in her lengthy response. There’s chopping, “growing boys” anecdotes, and I see some more decanted, unbranded (home made?) stock in my future.
Oh, god, now there’s Gabriella Cilmi to link to the fondant recipe. Another fondant? You know what? I’m really struggling to see this one through. I’ve seen more fondants cooked than I’ve had hot dinners, and that’s not even much of an exaggeration.
We get the “men are hopeless at multi-tasking” comment, while Julie goes off to start a fire. There’s some hurried visuals and narration, and then our lovely winter dessert is served, with seasonal strawberries. No, really.
Goodbye Julie and Gyton. What a missed opportunity. Aaron and Gyton would have been much better – he might have instructed TV Carl Williams to beat those eggs to a pulp.
You can watch Home Cooked! with Julie Goodwin* on Nine at 5.30pm on Saturdays. Recipes are online at NineMSN. Or you could just read a cookbook. Or, you know, use common sense.
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* Seriously. That’s the title. I wish I was kidding, but it’s even in the URL: channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/homecookedwithjuliegoodwin/ I’ll bet they were disappointed that they couldn’t include the exclamation mark.
Fail. Vegemite on toast next week?
Miss Melbourne´s last post ..The Rose Hotel
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Injera Rufus, Athena. Athena said: RT @injerarufus: I watched "Home Cooked! with Julie Goodwin". Not groundbreaking stuff, in case you were wondering. http://bit.ly/bJHN4A [...]
Interesting will have to have a look. In a sense I am the exact market Julie is probably targeting. I am time poor, and have to cook so much that I dislike it. So a quick easy slow cooker recipe is exactly the type of thing I need in my repetoire.
Reality Raver´s last post ..Charlotte Dawson and Alex Perry Sue Nine MSN And Facebook
Yeah, Miss Melbourne, agreed – it was a huge fail. Although now I’m going to be interested to see how simple the upcoming recipes can be. I’d be devastated to miss somebody making packet soup on a TV show!
RR – I get what you mean about being time poor, but this show is a time suck. Thirty minutes to see somebody use an electrical appliance, not give details about amounts, or even how to prepare a complete element of the main dish, so you still have to go to a recipe on the website. Much better use of time to get a Women’s Weekly book – triple tested and all that – on slow cooking and leave Julie to her sponsors!
Your review is hilarious and made me very thankful I’m still living television-free. Though I’m a little sad I can’t witness the giggling and inappropriate touching.
another outspoken female´s last post ..Im excited – Feel Good Food
It sounds like the television answer to “Take Four Ingredients”.
AOF: I would certainly not recommend breaking a TV free habit for this!
Daniel: It’s actually too late – there is a “Four Ingredients” show, as pointless as that sounds.
[...] Whereas Season 1 winner Julie Goodwin has no social media sites, but she does have own TV series. Her new series debuted this weekend. The show is called Home Cooked! With Julie Goodwin, Injera has reviewed the show over on her blog Blah Blog Blah. [...]
Daniel – have to say I watched a couple of 4 ingredients episodes on Lifestyle expecting to snigger, ok well I did a bit but I liked some of their recipes. I don’t have the book because they use a lot of pre-made stuff like cream of asparagus soup.
Reality Raver´s last post ..Charlotte Dawson and Alex Perry Sue Nine MSN And Facebook
Too funny
I was also questioning which bring spark thought the exclamation mark in Home Cooked! was a good idea. Who approved these things? Goodness me. I mean, goodness me!
I have watched bits of the show since the premiere, and I have to say that the exclamation mark is the best element of the entire adventure.
Not everyone wants to watch 5 star cooking. What about people who are just starting out on there own and have had mum to cook for them all there lives. They have’nt a clue! I know l didnt. Julie cooks every day, easy, quick meals. I say good on her.
True, Libby, not everyone wants 5 star, but those starting out would be poorly served by Julie’s show. The recipes are not thorough and not everyone starting out would have slow cookers or know how to make a couscous. Or be able to judge oven temps and times. There are good “back to basics” cooking shows: Jamie, Delia and even Huey do them well. In my opinion, Julie does not.