TV Chefs Blog is where we cover the celebrity chefs and cooking personalities: the news they make, the new products they sell, the restaurants they're opening. We also review the television cooking and food shows. We report on the more famous food authors and their new cookbooks too. If it has to do with eating it, making it and the star cooks who do it, it's here.
Sometimes you gotta wonder what the problem is with Gordon Ramsay. Does he open his mouth and spew out stuff and then think about it? Does he do things knowing he’s going to look like an idiot afterwards? Even if his own house were in order and if he indeed really did mean things from the heart, just who does he think he is to try and get legislative fines introduced for anything?
Yes, Gordon Ramsay shot his mouth off on Friday and now, with the weekend having passed and critics having gathered, they’re firing back. Looking at things as they are at the moment, Ramsay has managed to anger every United Kingdom cook and chef who wasn’t already annoyed by him.
You see, his general message was rather well-intended. Um, we think. From Friday’s Telegraph, Ramsay was saying that
the industry [is] at risk of “spiralling out of control” as food is flown into the UK from all over the world. Ramsay, whose restaurants include Maze, Petrus and Foxtrot Oscar, said chefs should be confident enough to remove a dish from the menu if the right ingredients were not available.
He said: “Chefs should be fined if they haven’t got ingredients in season on their menu.” “I don’t want to see asparagus in the middle of December, I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown.
This is where a decent thought turned into draconian craziness though:
There should be stringent laws, fines and licensing laws to make sure produce is only used in season. If we get this legislation pushed through the Houses of Parliament then the more unique this country will become.”
Ramsay said he had spoken to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown briefly about the issue and warned that buying food from abroad made cooks lazy. “If we don’t restrict our movements within this industry of seasonal produce only, then the whole thing will spiral out of control,” he told the BBC.
It didn’t take long for the country’s cooks and chefs and media to retaliate. From Saturday’s Telegragh came:
But Ramsay was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged that more than 15 unseasonal ingredients – including blackberries, parsnips and fennel – are currently being served at his own restaurants and would fall foul of a fine. [….]
Anthony Worrall Thompson, a television chef, was also circumspect: “I trawled through his menus from Claridges and Maze and there were at least 15 items that would have warranted a fine,” he said. “The principle is right but as for fining, I think it is a bit of a nonsense – he likes to keep in the limelight.”
It’s the Guardian’s comments section that Interneters are having the most fun pointing our Ramsay’s own restaurant flaws though:
Poster benbush wrote: “Leaving aside steak flown in from Japan and the USA (bring it on), the raspberries in the quail salad are maybe a little early? And which red fruits are in the Eton mess exactly. Presumably Padron peppers wouldn’t be shipped in from Padron would they? And all those apples they’re using must have been keeping well … What a chump.”
HowardV followed up with: “I heard the story on the radio this morning and immediately thought, ‘Oh no, Gordon again.’”
We just, I mean literally just the other day posted about ten new food shows coming on the Food Network and wham we found yet another one. This time we found it through the casting call pages. The current working title of the show is Food: True Life and would be on FN via Al Roker Productions, so you can guess who the host of the show might be. From the casting call:
Food Network is looking for amazing food related stories for a groundbreaking new series! (Just so you know, really, this was originally in all caps the entire sentence and had three exclamation points after it. It really did.) Do you or someone you know have an amazing food related story to tell? Do you know someone who has gone from being homeless to the owner of their own restaurant, makes pop art out of pineapples, or eats nothing but peanuts? Do you know someone who is battling food fears or phobias? Has food helped to cure an illness, changed the course of your life, or helped to inspire you in some dramatic way? We are looking for all types of stories even those that are odd or humorous to feature on and upcoming series for the Food Network. Casting is underway, so Email a brief description of your story with your contact information and picture of yourself ASAP to michaelraptis@alroker.com
In other news, “Jamie Oliver has beaten his culinary competition to be named the most iconic British chef of all time.” From the Manchester Evening News:
The 32-year-old TV chef and scourge of the Turkey Twizzler is now a bigger name than chefs of the past, who have changed the way Britons cook, as well as his contemporary rivals. Delia Smith, 66, whose reputation as the nation’s cookery queen began to crumble when she advocated tinned mince and frozen mashed potato in her latest TV series, ranks second in the poll. Gordon Ramsay’s foul-mouthed reputation does not stop the 41-year-old restaurateur and Kitchen Nightmares star from scooping third place.
In case you’re wondering the list when like this: 4. Rick Stein, 5. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, 6. James Martin, 7. Nigella Lawson, 8. Keith Floyd, 9. Nigel Slater, and, 10. Elizabeth David. And if you would like to know who made 11 through 20 and in what order … go read the article.
So Jamie gets the position of “Top Chef”, but it’s Gordon Ramsay who the people want for Mayor of London! A recent poll of who besides the two actual candidates running would Londoners like to see had Ramsay come in at an amazing 31 percent (which is as high or higher than what the real candidates running currently have in the real polls.)
Little Britain star David Walliams came in a distant second, with almost 15 percent of the votes, whilst the former Mrs McCartney, Heather Mills, took the title of ‘Least Desirable Celeb Mayor’ with less than one percent of the vote:
Kate Moss: 4.05%, Kelly Osbourne: 7.05%, Prince Harry: 13.87%, David Walliams: 14.68%, David Beckham: 7.05%, Heather Mills: 0.92%, Madonna: 3.35%, Gordon Ramsay: 31.21%, Hugh Grant: 7.40%, Other: 10.40%
Other celebrities nominated by public: Richard Fairbrass, David Tennant, Katie Price, Stephen Fry, Prince William, Gary Barlow, Mick Jagger, Richard Madeley, Paul McCartney, James Nesbitt, and Jeremy Clarkson.
Ok, so what exactly is going on there in England when it comes to cooking? Basically, as with cooking in other parts of the world, Canada, America, Australia, France … The whole “organic” movement is taking root. Organic and artisan and free-range poultry and local veggies grown in a local farm or your back garden (we see this exemplified by television shows shown in the US such as Chef’s Afield on Public Broadcasting or UK’s own Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home on the Food Network, or the show Manic Organic on one of the Discovery Channels, or this summer’s Emeril Green.
Back to England now, and we’ve seen Jamie who keeps saying use free-range chicken and in every one of his recipes they no longer start off with “two eggs” they always start off with “two organic, free range eggs” and even more than he, chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has wept openly over hens pleading for the nation to stop on several occasions. And between those two chefs alone, well, see my previous post: Thanks to Chefs, UK Food Industry ‘Runs A Fowl’ of Ready Supply.
So with all of this laying down the landscape, giving you the “bead” of the land, world wide to some extent, and really dramatically in England … in steps the woman who is pretty much to England what Julia Child was to America. Consider her the returning elder leader, the matriarch of UK cookery, Delia Smith who does what? Turns everything on it’s ear. Here’s an example I mentioned previously.
Ok, so what’s she done now? Basically while the UK about her is all tuned into the organic, free-range movement and chefs are all pontificating how not to eat tortured animals and such, she’s telling folks how to open a tin of meat and some potato flakes and freaking out the food world there. The Restaurant’s Raymond Blanc (the program known in the US as Last Restaurant Standing has — quoting TV Scoop” “already had a go, saying that he has lost all respect for Delia and feels that she has sold out.”
Or look at this headline in The Times: “Delia Smith has sinned against the foodie priesthood” the article goes on to say:
Delia’s sin in her new book and series is to stray from the organic orthodoxy preached by the priesthood of celebrity chefs. She champions cheap and quick recipes using (the horror!) frozen and tinned food, and has offended the Green and the Good further by insisting that battery chicken is necessary to feed hard-up families.
Here comes the interesting thing though, TV Scoop ponders, is this grand mother of English cooking the only rebel?
Watching the show left me with one major question: Is Delia the only real rebel in cookery? Seriously. Think about it. Jamie Oliver may play the drums and have a camera man who is a little unsteady on his feet, and with that, has gone on his crusades to save us all from Belly’s Gonna Get You … and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has wept openly over hens, soothing their hock burns with his tears… but who is the only one in the maelstrom saying ‘y’know what? Stick your lofty notions, some people can’t cook to save their lives and if taking a few short-cuts is gonna kick-start a love affair with the hob, then here’s the big F.U!’ It’s Delia that’s who.
There isn’t a show on the box that shows people how to start cooking. Ramsay et al are useful for people like me who aren’t afraid to have a go in the kitchen… but if you’re nervous about the difference between flours or how rare a piece of beef can be, then this new Delia show might just be a godsend.
Ha-hah! Sometimes finding things out is a game of putting puzzle pieces together. Funny thing, I didn’t even know I was working on a puzzle. Couple days ago, I saw something, said “aha” and posted how NBC was making (and casting) a US version of “Last Restaurant Standing” for the fall season.
Then I stumbled upon something else from a few days before that and it turns out there’s more news: The show has a name already and a host. And it looks more like it will be, not the fall but, the spring (or winter) season for its debut.
Legendary British chef Marco Pierre White has been tapped for a new reality show on NBC. The Chopping Block is skedded for 2009 and will feature eight American couples running two neighboring restaurants in Manhattan, with one couple being eliminated per week. Of course, this being reality television… there will be the obligatory challenges and mystery tasks.
White has prior television experience; he’s the current host of Hell’s Kitchen’s UK incarnation.
Yes, White took over the hosting lead started by Gordon Ramsay. Ramsay — and I don’t blame him a bit — didn’t want to do the version the UK producers wanted which was to continue with “dumb celebs” not real chefs who wanted to achieve something. And most of the actors, Ramsay found out years ago weren’t “into doing actual hard work”. There’s a famous clip on You Tube where a contrite, non-cursing Ramsay (yes, I swear you read that correctly) is smacked hard in the face by some prima donn ancient actress queen because Ramsay had the nerve to actually expect her to cook something in the kitchen, the very job she and her agent agreed she would do. After that (I’m betting) Ramsay said to the producers either give him real cooks or if they were going to keep doing it with has-been actors to bleep-off. And that’s when White took over the UK series.
As to this new American show for 2009 …. I hate to say this but I’m not sure if this version of Last Restaurant Standing will work or not. The major thing I like about the British one is that it really is eight real and seperate restaurants in eight seperate towns. When you have two teams in two storefronts next to each other it’s much more of a fakery gimmicky thing isn’t it? It’s basically a version of the “Restaurant Elimination Challenge” from Top Chef that they do yearly.
… Eh, we’ll see. Could work; could sink. Either way guess we’ll find out in about a year from now.
Those of you who are familiar with the comedy and news program The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are used to his ending each program with a snippet of profound weirdness he calls “Your Moment of Zen”. Well, this upcoming video find definitely reminds me of a weirdly “zen moment”.
I found this because another blog found this. Yes, this has apparently been around well over a year, maybe even two years. But you know the saying, if you haven’t seen it before it’s “new to you”. As the blog I happened across was calling this their silly gadget of the week and they posted it, yes, this week, looks like — like me — they don’t care if it’s two years old either.
So enjoy this real gadget Jamie Oliver has been or was hawking to the UK crowd a while ago. In case you don’t get it right off, the idea seems to be you can either put in your seasonings and such and this ball crushing something or other inside acts a bit like a morter and pestel … and/or you can make sauces by adding olive oil and seasonings in which case the ball inside acts more as an agitator or mixer.
No, I have no idea if this was a success or not or how many people bought them or if they are still being sold. (But then that’s what the comment area is for below, so feel free to let me know). Meanwhile, enjoy this 10-seconds of — and no, this is what it’s called, this isn’t my name, really — Jamie Oliver’s “Flavour Shaka”.
