This week I have been Reading
The 2011 Tour de France race guide.
Watching
An Idiot Abroad
Listening to
The xx
Discovering
(Or rediscovering) Hamlet - Nicki Greenberg's beautiful new version, thanks to the fabulous Snarkattack, who invited me along to see Nicki talk about the creative process behind the book.
Eating
- An enormous serve of bangers'n'mash and a nourishing pint of Kilkenny at the Town Hall one dismal Tuesday evening.
- A "Chachi" - chianina meatball sandwich - another brioche donut and some amazing chocolate tart at Beatrix, which Essjay has reviewed.
- A lazy Sunday lunch at The Crimean. The Polish hunter's stew (bigos) was just the thing to revive me after a chilly bike ride.
- Generous piles of fried food with oodles of chillies and sichuan peppercorns at Sichuan House
- Succulent suckling pig at Liberteene.
- An array of bright, zesty flavours at Chin Chin, where the only problem was having to choose only some of the items from what looks to be a menu that is all hits, no filler.
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By Injera, on January 12th, 2012% The final 15 check into their luxury mansion but stumble when they have to explain why they should be captain. The boys meet their mentor for the series, Graham Manou, before they take on their first match of the series.
Well, I didn’t make it to the first match of the series. The synopsis of the episode sums up what I did see fairly accurately, though. The mansion had all the trappings of luxury – marble entry, sweeping staircase, manicured lawns, a pool – and most of the final fifteen summed up their suitability for the role of captain with a series of variations on the syllable “um”. Oh, and they met Graham Manou.
Then there was a lot of smoke, the sound of approaching fire engines, and then the luxury mansion was evacuated for… a challenge that was going to focus on “communication”. And that’s when I turned off. Sure, there seemed to be a lack of urgency during the evacuation that hinted that the guys were aware that it was a set-up, but that only makes it more pointless, doesn’t it?
Not interested. Goodbye, Cricket Superstar, perhaps I’ll see one or more of the fifteen in the baggy green one day. Or, if not, in some Big Bash pyjamas.
At least I watched for long enough to have the life of a pro-cricketer summed up for me in one word. ”Freebies!” Thanks, Lee.
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This item has been cross-posted over at Reality Ravings.
By Injera, on January 7th, 2012% Some of the best Great British produce is under threat and in this campaigning series, ten of the BBC’s best-known chefs and cooks are on a mission to bring our traditional produce back from the brink.
I’m a sucker for any food show with “Great British…” at the beginning of the title, so I am predisposed to like this. Having Michel Roux Jr as one of the chefs in this episode is an almost unnecessary additional drawcard. Let’s see how it goes…
Continue reading Food TV – Great British Food Revival
By Injera, on January 5th, 2012% The search for Australia’s best young cricketer begins with the hopefuls tested under the watchful eye of Allan Border, as the dream starts to become a reality for fifteen talented sportsmen.
After a montage of high-energy international games, we zoom in to Lee Furlong (“Foxtel personality and cricket lover”, according to the narrator) and Allan Border. “Are you in?” she asks, “Or are you… OUT?” completes Allan Border, who has clearly been put through dramatic-pause bootcamp. More montage-ing, in which Ricky Ponting observes that he’d have liked Cricket Superstar to have been around when he was young, although I can’t see why. He managed to get a baggy green and take the national captaincy without the help of a televised talent quest, which promises to include challenges of no cricketing value whatsoever.
This is the first episode and I was diligently taking notes whilst watching only to decide that the entire 61 minutes (including ads) was preamble and that I’d have to watch at least one episode with the top 15 to decide whether or not to persevere. Some observations:
- Watching cricketing hopefuls drop catches is not as much fun as Pants on the Ground-type Idol auditions.
- In terms of entertainment value, the over-confidence of the Victorian “ladies man” was just as difficult to watch as the tongue-tied awkwardness of the poor South Australian contender.
- There are 18 year-old radio relationship counsellors? I weep for the future.
- The camera work needs to improve. I was having some grumpy David Stratton “keep it STEADY!” moments.
- Tension over who was to be selected was almost non-existent as most of those through had been featured heavily throughout the episode. Makes me wonder why they bothered with the “tryouts” episode at all, really, given how dull it was.
- Really not sure why they needed to include a keeper and a range of bowlers in the fifteen. We need opening batsmen!
Next week – a fire!
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This item has been cross-posted over at Reality Ravings.
By Injera, on June 20th, 2011% Marco’s Kitchen Burnout is long finished, yet the post on that has been my most recent here for over a month. It’s not that I haven’t been watching any TV, it’s just that I’ve been uninspired to write about it. There are some recordings from weeks ago on the IQ that I saved there so I could write them up, but… it just isn’t happening. Here’s why.
Masterchef Australia
Unlike the previous two seasons, I’m not watching this every night. When the cast list was announced I was really looking forward to tuning in. The presence of two (some people have suggested more, but Billy and Mat were the ones I had read) food bloggers and George in the same space promised a volatile mix. The launch publicity indicated a return to the “basics”, which I misinterpreted to mean “this lot have a really firm grasp on the basics of cooking so will be presenting a high standard of food”, rather than “we’ve had to teach them how to separate eggs”. My level of frustration is such that I only watch now when Reality Raver asks if I’ll recap1. Otherwise, I read her site to keep in touch with how things are going in the Masterchef kitchen. It’s not about food, it’s about drama and manipulation. But it’s also about influencing how people talk about food, and how new Food TV is framed. Which brings me to…
By Injera, on May 9th, 2011% Marco Pierre White puts three celebrities to the test in a busy London restaurant. Their challenge: to run its professional kitchen single handedly.
There are three words that have me automatically adding an unheard-of show to my viewing schedule. Marco. Pierre. White. There is something compellingly menacing about him, which makes you wonder where the line is between the “real” Marco and the kitchen performance without questioning that there is such a line. His two seasons of Britain’s Hell’s Kitchen featured regular segments where Marco, in a tone that always suggested barely controlled rage, would share his philosophies and anecdotes. Unfortunately I can’t remember any of them, but perhaps I recorded some when I blogged it here and over on Reality Ravings way back when. Great British Feast was an enjoyable ramble around the countryside with Marco and his “devoted sidekick”, Mr Ishii.
Unfortunately, this show is really a lukewarm remake of the UK Hell’s Kitchen – which was always a celebrity beast – and unfortunately provides neither a showcase for Marco or his guests. The format is slightly different to HK – each “celebrity” (I haven’t recognised any of them so far) is playing for him/herself. Marco doesn’t provide Masterclasses to his celebs, he just watches them get into the weeds during service, repeats phrases such as “where are your herbs, your herbs, your herbs, your herbs, your herbs, your herbs”, and tries to encourage them to “buy” his time. At one point per minute, buying Marco’s time will take a chunk of the maximum 100 points available from the diners.
I’ve watched the first two episodes, and I’ll keep watching as it’s on at a good “background” timeslot, but it’s certainly not great food TV, reality TV, or MPW.
Marco’s Kitchen Burnout is on Lifestyle Food, Sundays at 5.30pm.
By Injera, on March 29th, 2011% Students: Two student friends from Durham want to improve their cooking skills and learn to make delicious, easy and cheap Chinese food to replace their usual mince dishes.
I was interested to see how this English show covered Chinese food. It’s presented as an introduction to ingredients and techniques for a couple of budding cooks each episode and the lovely Ching-He Huang selects accessible recipes and introduces any specialty ingredients well. In this episode, she takes a couple of students to a local supermarket to shop for produce. I’m sure her heart must’ve sunk when they admitted to not being able to distinguish between a marrow and a cucumber, although I suspect they weren’t quite as clueless as this makes out. They were, after all, shown sitting down at the dinner table in their share-house to eat one of their aforementioned “mince dishes” with a glass of wine each. Anyway, their admission didn’t put her off her game, and she happily cooked up a storm with chinkiang vinegar, chilli bean sauce, yellow bean sauce and shaohsing wine.
The cooking is billed as “in minutes”, and our host certainly races through the script swiftly enough, however these things do take time. When the cooking started in the outdoor kitchen in Chinatown (Durham has a Chinatown? – I guess the filming must be done in London, although I was surprised to see that Newcastle has one!), the sun was blazing in the sky. By the time we get to the second dish, it is very dark and the students and cook were all rugged up and looking a little miserable. The food soon cheered them up and, after a demo, they were sent to do some cooking of their own.
Chinese Food in Minutes is on the Food channel on Sundays at 7.00pm and repeats are scheduled during the week. The website contains video links to individual recipes as well as printable recipes. It’s well worth a look.
By Injera, on March 16th, 2011% Modern Classics: Donna revamps some classics with her chic and easy version of Steak and Three Veg and her special twist on Pasta Carbonara.
The televisionisation of food (sure, that’s a thing, right?) has been getting along just fine without my blogging, however I have been meaning to get back into a rhythm with posts. For some reason, I thought that the new Donna Hay show would be just the kick-start I needed. [Hollow laughter]
I’ll be brief. Dot point brief, in fact.
- adding cream to a pasta carbonara is Donna Hay’s trick to “lighten” it up and make it “simple”
- chocolate and cinnamon wontons make “perfect sense” to Hay
- to “lighten up” steak and three veg, choose sweet potato, potato and parsnip as your veg, then smother them in butter and parmesan and bake1
- the perfect condiment for this refreshing new take on an old classic is garlic mayonnaise, “or aioli, for the fancy ones”
- two of the four savoury dishes are based around skinless chicken breast fillets [yawn]
- make lemon mayo by adding lemon juice to mayo
There is nothing new about this show. It’s a televised Donna Hay book. It’s not that different to [insert small number here] Ingredients or Giada or Bill. She seems comfortable in front of the camera and it’s certainly not a disaster. It’s just… boring. The only really “fresh” part of the proceedings is a welcome lack of product placement. That doesn’t mean everything is made by Hay, but then she doesn’t claim it is; in fact, she starts off by saying that it is based on using fresh produce and bought products to create simple dishes. Instead, products such as mayonnaise and icecream are repackaged in plain containers. That is not enough to make me tune in again. If she starts doing something interesting, let me know in the comments.
Donna Hay – Fast, Fresh, Simple is on Lifestyle every Tuesday at 8.30pm
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1. That’s not to say I don’t fancy the idea of some potato strips baked with butter, thyme and parmesan, it’s just that I don’t see how that can be described as “lighten(ing) up” veg.
By Injera, on November 7th, 2010% It’s been ages since I did a proper post. Updating my weekly This week I have been… has just made me lazy; I tend to view it as a real post, but we all know it’s not. Even less “real” since I’ve been belt-tightening just in case of unemployment. Of course, I guess I could include salad and avocado-on-toast in the eating section… but all those fabulous degustations and wagyu-burger-battles have focussed my attention on recording, well, more interesting food – and other entertainments – for posterity.
So, here’s what I’ve been watching, in slightly more depth than the side-bar allows:
Continue reading TV roundup
By Injera, on October 30th, 2010% This week it’s the turn of the chefs from the Central region – Daniel Clifford, Richard Bainbridge and Will Holland. Only two chefs can make it through to cook for the formidable judges and one will be going home early. All the chefs are desperate for the honour of cooking for The Prince and today they’re launching their culinary assault with the starters; braised hog’s head with apple sorbet, white onion soup with roasted muntjac and rabbit and smoked bacon salad.
When I typed the heading for this, I accidentally typed “Good TV”, which describes Great British Menu perfectly. Each week, three chefs from a geographic region of Britain (Scotland, northern England and central England so far) put up four courses over four nights, with the top two taking their menus to the judges on the fifth night. One is judged the regional winner, who moves on to the final, aiming to get at least one of their dishes onto the banquet menu.
I guess it has the potential to be a bit dry, but these guys are all pros with the competitiveness, creativity and ego that goes with that. Think Masterchef: Professionals rather than Britain’s Best Dish. In previous years, two chefs have competed for each region and have had a local “mentor” to provide feedback on the dishes as they’re developed. This season the “mentor” is now giving scores to each dish, which definitely provides some extra drama. One of the high points of each episode is the tasting – the chef disappears with the mentor to taste one plate, leaving the competitors to taste the other at the pass. You know it’s a good dish when the competitors praise it as they are extremely talented in the art of negativity, picking up flaws that the mentor and judges are unable to detect.
One of the strengths of the show is the judging panel: Prue Leith, Oliver Peyton and Matthew Fort. They bicker, occasionally agree, and always express surprise when the menus are revealed at the end of tasting. Oliver can usually be relied upon to wear the crankypants, but Matthew Fort often belies his teddy-bear demeanour in his comments. The choice of mentors has been great this season: past contestants – and big personalities – Marcus Wareing, Glynn Purcell (whose battle with Daniel Clifford for last year’s central spot was a highlight of season 4) and Jeremy Lee so far, with the website suggesting we’ll see Michael Caines and – one of my favourites – Angela Hartnett amongst others over the next few weeks.
Great British Menu is on each weeknight on Lifestyle Food. It’s repeated the following day and weekly marathons are scheduled on the weekends.
By Injera, on September 28th, 2010% Romance: Sophie presents her perfect dishes for the three stages of romance.
Before we even get into this thing, I have to admit to being less than enthusiastic about it. That’s not to say Miss Dahl doesn’t have a decent food pedigree. Her grandfather wrote about an amazing chocolate factory, a giant peach and showed his love of food in the way he wrote about it in most of the books I can remember. Not only that, but he demonstrated the importance of food to his family with the release of a cookbook. Sophie is no stranger to celebrity – famous family, model, author – and will no doubt have a reasonable screen presence, but I doubt that she has anything new to bring to the genre.
“I’ve always been interested in food. Primarily because I’ve always been interested in eating it.” So says the eponymous Miss Dahl over the credit sequence of animated lip-smacking. She talks about having been both Rubenesque and a “mere slip”, and of learning to cook at her grandmother’s knee, thus establishing her credentials as a food show host, I guess.
Find out whether this is worth persevering with after the jump.
Continue reading Food TV – The Delicious Miss Dahl
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