Work last night…

…was a real giggle It was particularly busy because there was a singer–a cabaret sort of bloke–due in at about 10pm, and so lots of people had booked in order to see him.

I was mainly helping the woman in charge of dealing with drinks orders, but I was drafted in to carry some food out a couple of times as it was a very busy night.

The best moment was when I was asked to carry out a plate of vegetarian crab to a busy table. I stood around smiling and calling, “Vegetarian crab?” for a minute or so with no success, until all of a sudden a penny dropped in somebody’s mind and a woman across the table began to giggle and told me it was her vegetarian kebab. LOL! Oops…

Some time after that I was dispatched to the local supermarket to buy £40’s worth of Mateus Rose (I didn’t know it was still going! But clearly there’s been a run on it, since I got the last 9 bottles) in a hurry, as one of the tables had consumed the entire supply. As the boss handed over the dosh he fixed me with a glare and said, “Make sure you come back.” Bearing in mind that he hasn’t paid me anything yet it was a bit of a toss-up *g*

At another point I was told to take a bottle of red wine to one of the tables. I did, and expertly (ha!) poured some for them, and then I carried the bottle back to the vault. I was almost there before I realised that I should have left it on the table. Oops again *g*

I’m not a cabaret sort of person, but I have to say that the singer was really excellent! I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but within about 30 minutes he had people up and bopping around the tables. By the time I left the place was a frenzy of happy middle-aged diners gyrating in the aisles!

I only had 8 hours this week–I’m working there again tonight–so it doesn’t look as though I’m going to make a lot of money doing this job. If things carry on as they’re going, though, I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it *g*

The Restaurant — Off The Boil Again

Sadly, last night’s The Restaurant was as dull as ditchwater again.

M. Blanc says it’s a very difficult decision, but to me it seems simple.

1. The Summer Room. Despite their charm and business smarts, the two cocktail blokes don’t cook. So, unless Raymond and his associates want to go into business with them in something other than a restaurant then they simply can’t win.

2. Rags to Riches. The chef is excellent, but Nathan is so mind-bogglingly dreadful with customers (when he’s forgotten the camera is there), rude to his colleagues (when he thinks nobody’s watching) and just plain lazy that it would be ridiculous to go into business with him. If Raymond et al choose them then they need their heads feeling!

3. The Front Room. They remain my choice for the best team in the competition, and I was delighted to see Steve up his game and impress the female judge with his cooking this week. They seem suddenly to have fallen foul of significant ill luck, though–good for Steve for fighting on through back pain: nightmare–and the clip from next week seems to suggest that they’re embroiled in another crisis. It seems to me that they really *must* win, though, given the level of the competition, unless they cock it up for themselves. I hope they’ll manage to hang on.

Sadly, I can’t say I’ll be counting down the days until the next series if it’s going to be no more lively than this one.

Fantastic foody treat on YouTube

Browsing around on YouTube earlier I came across a series from the 1970s where Marco Pierre White, at the height of his Harveys days, cooks for Albert Roux (then of Le Gavroche), Nico Ladenis (Simply Nico), Pierre Koffman (La Tante Claire) and Raymond Blanc (Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons).

There’s a whole episode devoted to each of the chef he cooks for, and each episode is divided on YT into three parts. In each one Marco explains how he chose the menu, cooks it and then eats it over conversation with the guest at the end.

Gordon Ramsay was working at Harveys at the time, and it’s great fun to see him cooking away–quietly–in the background. That can’t have been easy *g*

Wow, that was great! I wish the Roux Brothers’ series was there too. Still, I think I have it squirreled away somewhere on a dusty video… (Edited to add: Ooooh! It *is* there!)

Here’s one eppy to get you started. Enjoy!

Quick update — cars, cooks, celebrities and rain

I’m still mired in car-related chaos, here, but I hope to be finally getting it sorted out either today or tomorrow. I’ve settled on a Skoda Fabia Estate, subject only to the fates performing a further backflip and turning my plans around once again. Now, I hope, it’s simply a matter of choosing the actual car. Fingers crossed y’all, please, and a special mention for Mango Terrier, who knows far more about cars, and buying them, than I’d have believed possible until a week ago.

What is it with the contestants on Come Dine With Me, I wonder? I can’t understand why so many people who choose to enter a dinner party hosting competition appear to be averse to eating/trying such a wide range of foods!

Catching up with a few episodes via the wonderful TV on Demand yesterday, I saw great swathes of people who didn’t like/wouldn’t eat/had never heard of/were unwilling to taste bog-standard varieties of fish, cheese, chocolate and meat. One bloke made what looked like an absolutely scrumptious fish stew, only to find that one of his 3 guests simply didn’t eat fish whilst another one couldn’t face fish that came in shells and “…looks like this!” she said, dragging a snarl onto her face and arranging her arms into a pointy, aggressive-looking attitude in front of her eyes. It turned out that she was referring to the langoustines. After that she folded her arms and went to sleep on the table, though she was eventually able to rouse herself for a bit of chocolate pudding. In another episode, a woman was so appalled by cheese, and everthing that it involves, that she had to leave the room and watch a bit of television next door while the others tucked into a bit of cheddar. Profoundly weird, ISTM…

I dunno about you, but I’m already addicted to this year’s round of I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! It’s the only one of the ‘reality’ TV things I watch, and it’s always a lot of fun (unless you happen to be a creepy crawlie living in the Australian rain forest, of course, in which case I’m sure it’s all a bit depressing).

The celebs that make up this year’s bunch are less immediately entertaining than the last lot, but it appears that things are finally hotting up. Last night’s drama between Kim Woodburn (a bit of a bully) and Joe Bugner (a bit of a bully, but larger) made such uncomfortable viewing that I had to watch through squinted eyes, and Piglet became upset and had to be comforted by the cat. I reckon Jimmy White’s going to come through strongly as things progress, and that American bloke, George Hamilton, seems to have a sneakily wicked sense of humour.

Speaking of food, I’d like to have said something about Raymond Blanc’s The Restaurant, but it’s so extremely odd that it seems to have left me entirely unable to comment. Well, other than to say that I was very sorry to see the two army blokes go out, and that my money’s been on the two cheery peeps from The Front Room (or The Living Room, or whatever it’s called) from the outset. There! That’s prolly the kiss of death for them, then! *g* More next week, perhaps.

Last, but certainly not least, looking at the pictures that John Hee linked to on his blog yesterday I’m relieved beyond description that Piglet and I are no longer in The Licks…

Real food–easy, cheap, delicious, healthy…

I get a bit fed up hearing/reading on the television/in the press the oft-repeated mantra that “Oh, I have to buy ready meals because I can’t afford to do otherwise,”.

I don’t buy ready meals because I love delicious food and enjoy cooking, and ISTM that ready meals would be likely to fail on both counts. Being curious, though, and liking to stare at food of almost any hue whenever given the opportunity, I sometimes take a scan through the things on offer when I’m at the supermarket, and I have to say that it all looks extremely expensive to me. Added to which, the portions definitely aren’t large enough…

This evening I wasn’t sure what to have for dinner, so I made a v. simple soup from a couple of carrots, an onion, a teaspoon full of a cunning soup base that I made a couple of months ago (recipe culled from the River Cottage Preserves book–see ‘Souper Mix’–delicious and lasts (literally) months in the fridge), some handfuls of orange lentils, green lentils and pearl barley and a handful of new potatoes that I found lurking in the bottom of the fridge. Oh, and a handful of toasted and ground cumin seeds, just to add interest.

It all came to a huge pan for hardly any money at all, and in fact it only takes an hour from having the idea to tucking in (though it’s possible to leave it to simmer for longer, if you want to get all the sticky loveliness out of the pearl barley). I ate it with a yummy wholemeal roll that I made earlier, at a fraction of the cost of what I’d have needed to pay in a shop.

I understand that some peeps don’t cook from fresh ingredients because they don’t have the time, or (in some cases) wrongly believe it takes longer than it does, or–basically–because they simply don’t enjoy cooking. All of those are perfectly fair enough. This crap about it being more expensive than buying tubs of additive-filled semi-toxic gunk at hugely inflated prices is just ridiculous, though!

[/rant]

Ooooh! Brilliant!!

Ye Olde Slowman mentioned to me a brillzville TV programme that I somehow overlooked last year. That’ll be because it wasn’t shown on the Cookery Channel.

However, I’m just settling into Episode 1 of Maestro, the story of 6 peeps competing to learn how to conduct an orchestra. I bet quite a lot of y’all saw it when it was first on. Doh…

Meanwhile, my wholemeal bread rolls are proving (ha! I hope…) downstairs in a bin liner. I made some mixed seed ones yesterday, and I think I can accurately state, without fear of contradiction, that they were just about the most noxious and lead-ridden lumps of dough ever to emerge from a mixing bowl. I ate a bit of one this morning, and I don’t want to go into too much detail at what’s still vaguely lunchtime, but if I explain that it involved an immediate dash to a small room upstairs and an extremely uncomfortable 10 minute hiatus then I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

Weevils in the flour, perhaps? Hmmm… or maybe Piglet and Piss-Piss had some sort of secret input?? I dunno, but I hope the new batch bears absolutely no relation to last night’s revolting bleuch.

Tragedy!!! *sniffle*

Oh noes!

Much as it pains me to say it, I did think Steve deserved to win. He had a creative edge that M didn’t quite match.

*sob*

I thought the sob story to gain audierce sympathy part was unnecessary and a bit tacky but I suppose it’s compulsory in TV these days.

Good luck to all 3 of them (but particularly to M heh… )

MTP — Exciting!

Go Marianne!

P is so excited that she`s lying on floor with paws over face!

Gosh! That Eric chap’s nice *g* Oddly enough, my dinner looked nothing like that.

“The size of your choux is much too big.” LOL! Shades of the “baking shit” I remember from when I watched the Roux Bros on television as a child

Michel Roux Sr. said
M was “Perfect” heh… Smug? Me?? Nooooo…..

I have to say, though, that I thought Steve’s puds were sensationally imaginative. Wow…

Masterchef: The Professionals – OMG OMG OMG!!!

Wow, that was Exciting Stuff! And what an unexpected treat to have the second episode as well!

*takes a couple of deep, cleansing breaths*

I was *amazed* by Steve and the other bloke in the first eppy. I had no recollection of either of them from the earlier rounds, but I thought they both played an absolute blinder tonight!

The knock-out round, though, was really heart-stopping stuff. WHAT A RELIEF THAT MARIANNE WENT THROUGH! ZOMG, my heart was in my mouth when it came to the end. When they called her name out second I thought they were about to say she had to go home! Other than Steve, who I thought was fantastic, none of them seemed to do as well as they’ve done in earlier rounds.

I almost cried when I saw Marianne’s first course, because it looked so dire and pedestrian. I thought the veggies looked as though they’d come out of a can! Thank goodness it tasted as good as her stuff always does, and that this time the meat was cooked. Phew… When her ice cream failed to set I had to pour myself a stiff drink…

Poor Ryan–I didn’t think he did himself justice tonight. Problems with his ice cream too? Sounds to me as though the ice cream machine may have been on the blink.

That starter that Steve produced for the knock-out round was just fantastic! I wanted to reach into the television and grab one *g*

At the end of the day, I don’t actually think they ended up with the four cooks who performed best throughout the whole competition. I think Ludovic and Ryan both did better overall than tonight’s third finalist (WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER HIS NAME? AAAGH…). And even though he cocked up the timings on two of his courses in the Quarter Finals, I *still* think wee David produced some of the most amazing food in the competition. I cringed all over again when I saw the look on his face when they showed the moment that he was knocked out by Ryan. That’s what happens with these knockout things, though; unless they break all the rules, of course, as they did earlier this evening, and fail to eliminate one of the contestants.

I’m supposed to be setting off for the Lakes on Monday, but if I do that then I’m going to miss the finals The series doesn’t seem to finish until Thursday night. It occurs to me all of a sudden, though, that I won’t have to miss the finals if I do B&B for the first 4 nights! Hmmm…. *g*

Masterchef: The Professionals — MORE tears before bedtime!

Oh NOES! Lovely Ludo Loses Out!! I can hardly believe it!!!

What a pity! Somehow Ludo’s spark of genius appeared to desert him this evening, and now he’s gone Good luck to the other chap, but on all previous showings Ludo was by far the better cook.

I can’t currently remember anything about the two remaining semi-finalists: they didn’t make any sort of impression on me. So now, I reckon, it’s all between the arrogant young bloke and the lovely Marianne.

MARIANNE! MARIANNE!! RAH! RAH!! RAH!!!

Fence? What fence?? *g*