**For Simply Baking recipes, click here**
Recipes from today’s program (Friday 18 June) will be posted tomorrow.
As TV shows end, there are new ones to attract my devotion. Knowing that Bret Michaels had found love with one of the gawjus laydeez in Rock of Love II might be good news for the Poison singer, but bad news for this fan of his poignant search for a meaningful relationship1. Fortunately I mentioned the approaching end of the show to a friend at lunch and she reminded me to check out Simply Baking on 7Two on Friday afternoons.
Simply Baking is hosted by Andrew Nutter, a celebrity chef from Lancashire who isn’t shy about capitalising on his surname (one of his books is called Utter Nutter). I’m so lucky that my first viewing of Simply Baking featured puff pastry, because I can’t get enough of hearing a northern accent say “puff pastry”. And three minutes in, he’d said “puff pastry” more times than I can count. I’d been warned that he’s also fond of the word “actually” – he did say it a lot, but it definitely came second to “puff pastry” in this ep2.
It’s possible (probable) that the show has the backing of a proper production company, but the look and feel is of a public television spot shot in Nutter’s bedsit. Cooking shows these days are all about the slick appliances; Simply Baking features real whitegoods! There’s not an inch of stainless steel in sight. I did spy a KitchenAid on the bench, but it was in muted green (or navy?) and was hidden away. More eyecatching was what looked like a prop from the TV version of Hitchhikers Guide. It turned out to be a ridiculously small fridge.
Everything about the show is daggy and old-school. Nutter demonstrates the recipes, then reads through them again while the ingredients and amounts are displayed on the screen – I’m pretty sure that, before this section, he even reminded viewers to grab a pen and piece of paper. Bless! Wardrobe consisted of the largest, orangest shirt I’ve ever seen and it coordinated nicely with the collection of orange tea-towels. It wasn’t until he popped over to the oven (gas mark 5!) that I could confirm that it was actually a shirt and not a dhoti of some description.
Simply Baking is a nice little cooking show. The host is chirpy (“personable” would be damning with faint praise, I guess) and the recipes – today at least – were simple and looked reasonably tasty. Plus, I’m now prouder of my knife skills than I was before viewing; Nutter’s crowing about being able to slice leeks finely whilst looking at the camera and talking (wow! Multi-tasking!) elicited a snort and “call that fine?!” from me (and a startled leap from the cat, who still isn’t used to the fact that I talk back to the TV)3.
If you are seeking recipes from the show, try the Simply Baking tag in the left side bar – I’ve been recapping episodes since this one and transcribed the baked delights, after a fashion…
Not long after the Nutter half hour is Tamasin’s Weekend. The eponymous Tamasin is the sister of Daniel Day Lewis and the show is a longer version of Posh Nosh, without any satire (and without Richard E. Grant, of course). In today’s episode, Tamasin’s uni student daughter was “cooking” for some friends, which offered her mother both the opportunity to say “darling” more than Nutter said both “puff pastry” and “actually” combined and the chance to make all sorts of dated judgements about students and their pot noodle dependencies. Tamasin also indulged in some self-congratulatory “I’ve taught her all about cooking” stuff, and then did all the cooking while her daughter got dressed and made up. The “cooking” involved slicing raw vegies, making a bagna cauda, and cooking some pasta to be served with what turned out to be some stringy-looking chicken. They also said “hoomus” a lot, which might be the correct pronuciation for all I know. I’m glad I’ve seen Tamasin and, while I’d like to say I won’t watch it again, it has just enough fingernails-on-the-chalkboard appeal to make it a keeper.
The last new show that hasn’t made it onto the recording schedule, but is still ridiculously addictive (and is probably the one that is the true successor to RoL) is RuPaul’s Drag Race. Basically, it’s America’s Next Top Model with a more appealing host and, in some cases – Ongina! – more attractive contestants. The contestants are vying for the honour of winning the race, I guess. To be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to the endgame, since the challenges are the major entertainment focus. Once contestants have passed the challenge, the bottom two “lip-synch for their lives” and the loser is eliminated. It’s a fun show and I’m enjoying seeing Project Runway‘s Santino on the judging panel.
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1. The fact that I know there’s another RoL series is some comfort to me here.
2. One of the recipes also featured mushrooms. Mushrooms! And “bootton mooshrooms” at that.
3. I see that quite a few new visitors have come here looking for Nutter recipes. Sorry! No recipes here, but there are some here, here and here. Enjoy!
