Nigella in failing to inspire shocker

[karohemd]

Watched Nigella Express earlier on BBC2 and again, it was meh.
Her recipes seem to be either bland (the poussins - why not chicken if it's supposed to be simple? - seasoned only with a little cinnamon and cumin on top) or spicy (the wasabi-lime dressing). The pork chops with mustard sauce could be OK, I guess.
Not to mention that every time she takes a knife into her hands, I fear for her fingers. Now, I don't expect everyone on TV to have wizard knife skills, I don't (although it's a joy to watch) but at least you can try and be safe. The way she fried those squid (dumping them into the hot oil from a bag from above) made me wince, too. A large amount (four inches in the pan) of hot oil is probably the most dangerous thing you can have in a kitchen and shouldn't be treated lightly. I'm against all the "nanny culture" things going on but at least the "pros" should show how it's done.
And then little niggles like she didn't score the fat on the chops so they curled up when she fried them.

Say against Jamie Oliver as a person what you will but his food is fantastic. No frills, just great, simple (and easy to find) ingredients cooked quickly and full of flavour, just like how I like to cook. Not much style but boy, is it tasty.

Comments

[georgechance.livejournal.com]

What is wrong with Jamie Oliver as a person?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Various people don't like him. I don't care, I don't have to hang out with him but I love watching him cook.

[georgechance.livejournal.com]

I have only seen him on TV, but I didn't get the feeling he was a bastard or anything. Hmmm odd. And he does a wonderful job cooking, I wish he was on over here more.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I don't get it, either. I guess a lot of it is jealousy because he's young and made it rich before he was 30. Compared to Nigella (who's posh and ditzy), he just seems like a down to earth guy. He puts a lot of emphasis on quality ingredients (so do I) but does away with dinky luxury stuff.
I'd rather have a locally reared chicken than a supermarket poussin, thank you very much.

[omentide.livejournal.com]

A locally reared chicken done like Jamie Oliver's 'Pukka Chicken' which is... gorgeous. That's the one where you put huge quantities of chopped up herbs between the breast and the skin on the breast.

I don't watch TV (we don't get TV at the moment) but I do always buy his books.

I like his attitude but he should get a proper motorcycle.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

I think the main cause of irritation from Jamie Oliver is that he tries so hard to come across as some salt-of-the-earth, working-class-diamond-geezer-made-good, with his grating mockney-isms and so on, whereas in fact he could not be more middle-class if he... actually, I'm having trouble finding anything more axiomatically middle-class than Jamie Oliver. You get the idea, I'm sure.

That said, I can see what you mean about his food, and fair play for his work on the school dinners thing, and so on. It's merely his faux-barrow-boy demeanour that grates.

IMOSHO...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

It's merely his faux-barrow-boy demeanour that grates.
Oh yeah, I know he's not genuine but Nigella pretending to be posh while she clearly isn't grates more in my mind. Dead Ringers did a fantastic bit on her a few years ago (cooking in the jungle with fine ingredients) which was just brilliantly on the spot.

I think Gordon Ramsay is an arrogant twat, too, but he knows his stuff and is probably the best of the TV chefs, at least technically.

[mr-malk.livejournal.com]

Well... I don't think Nigella's poshness is totally without foundation. She is the daughter of Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer, so I doubt she was exactly brought up as an inner-city latch-key brat, but I take your point.

I also agree completely about Ramsay. Obnoxious git, but he clearly knows what he's about as a chef, and takes pride in that. Is he still in denial that he is a celebrity chef? He always used to get very tetchy about that. I always thought he was utterly deluded on that score, but he has been whoring around the media circuit quite a bit since then, so he might have accepted the inevitable.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Nigella pretending to be posh while she clearly isn't

I think she is really quite posh (unless you're limiting that to actual aristocrats) -- her parents were very wealthy Establishment types and she went to all sorts of posh schools etc.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

posh referring to cooking, I meant. It's clear that she's a spoilt brat. ;oP Anyway.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry ;-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

As a person in real life he might be lovely, but his TV persona is flippin' annoying. As is Nigella's. Gah! What happened to TV chefs being allowed to just be enthusiastic about the food, without having to have some sort of ghastly contrived personality!

(But I agree with karohemd about Jamie's actual recipes being generally excellent.)

[georgechance.livejournal.com]

Well, I only have seen him a few times on the food network, and I didn't think he was annoying. Mind you I thought he was quaint with his british ways :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

"Quaint" is right ;-)

I'm sure there are equivalent Americans whom we love but you find irritating... (Ann Maurice? Norm Abram?)

[(Anonymous)]

Norm Abram? Is he the woodworking guy?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

*googles* Yeah, the "New Yankee Workshop" guy. Reminds me of my dad, builds everything from wood. ;o)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

In my case, it's my uncle he reminds me of ;-)

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

That stale croissant caremelized pudding thing she made at the end scared me. And she took it to bed with her! Random!

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That could actually be quite good. I love bread pudding style things. Best thing in the programme.

Oooh, another bad example: going to bed without brushing your teeth after eating sweet stuff!

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

I have never tried anything like it, so it might well be nice, it was just strange :)
And yes, perhaps the thought of going to bed after eating that without brushing your teeth was perhaps what subconsciously made me go wibble :) :)

[mazzarc.livejournal.com]

We just had bread and butter pudding for desert :-D

You should pop round more often!

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I regularly make an Austrian/German version which is fried in the pan. Maybe we can do an exchange at one point. ;o)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Your call. I actually like Nigella's recipes more than Jamie Oliver's, mostly (and I have just about all of both their output). And I like looking at her more than I do JO, but that may just be me ;)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.
You know, I don't care what a chef looks like (as long as they are clean) if their food is good, but you're right. :o)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

For one scary moment there I thought you meant me, then remembered that people have initials.

[lilitufire.livejournal.com]

The thing that irritates me about Nigella's recipes is that it's completely random whether they work or not. For example, her crumble recipe is unusable - far too much butter, congeals into horrible mess. And I've had a couple of off moments with starters. So I'd never cook something from scratch for someone else from her books now, though I occasionally like some of the ideas, and my sister in law served me a melon mint and pomegranate salad which was lovely.

I also prefer my coq au vin recipe (brown chunks of chicken breast, garlic and mushroom in olive oil, chuck in pan, add wine, add carrots and fresh rosemary, fill with little water to cover, leave to bubble until wine reduced) to her stupid faffy thing that means you have to tend it for two hours.

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

the recipes of nigellas that I use most are her bakery ones and very rarely do they not work well

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Who wrote that cloudberries books and the other really pretty ones that are like Nigellas books only better?

The best thing Nigella has going for her is mentioning the Elvis cook book 'Are you hungry tonight'. I'd perhaps never have heard about it otherwise...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

If I'm allowed to, I'll take a photo of Elvis' kitchen for you next month. :o)
I'll be in Memphis so it would be a crime not to visit Graceland.

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Now that would be a really cool picture to have :)

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

thats Tessa Kiros and Falling Cloudberries is indeed a thing of wonder

I think I will always maintain How to be a Domestic Goddess is a great cookbook and one of the few I regularly use recipes from (that of course may be due to the number of cookbooks I actually own)

I think her recipe books are better than she is in person

I will still probably buy her new one or be given it as a present I suspect

[susanofstohelit.livejournal.com]

Nigella's one of my least favorite out of all the chefs on food network - it might just be the way her show's shot, but it just turns me off. I like the ones that either seem genuine (like paula dean) or ones that indisputably know their stuff and produce successful recipes. giada dilaurentis and alton brown are my favorites.

(by the way, if you go to savannah, you should try to go to Paula Dean's restaurant The Lady and Sons. it's supposed to be incredible southern food, but not posh.)

[diasporal-waves.livejournal.com]

Jamie oliver is great as a person and his TV shows are fun. I only own 1 of his books and it is too complex for me (too long to cook, prepare or too many ingredients. The book is "Return of the naked chef").

Nigella I could look at all day (or until the missus belts me), but then she opens her mouth, then I can't stand her. That is why I have never seen a Nigella TV show.

...nice eyes though...:)

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I watched it and thought it was TERRIBLE!

The whole thing was incredibly fake, and I was very suspicious that almost every time we saw the food cooking or being prepared it was in extreme close-up. So that basically the hands we were seeing could have been anyone's and we'd be none the wiser!

The food all looked really horrible too, I thought. Actually, so did Nigella. I've never watched any of her other telly programmes, but her face looked like a frozen mask. Either she was wearing too much makeup or she's had some plastic surgery done. She seemed drunk half the time too, but again, I've never seen her in action before, so maybe that's just her way.

A very weird programme altogether. Bring back that nice lady who was showing us howe to make Indian food! :(

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Yes, I loved her, too.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I liked her friend who was in the first and last episodes. :)

[diasporal-waves.livejournal.com]

Could be worse, Keith Floyd: Drunk all the time and no plastic surgery at all :)

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Ah, but he makes no secret of the fact that he's sloshing back gallons of wine while cooking whetever it is. I respect his honesty!

Nigella on the other hand clearly has things to hide...

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I like Keith Floyd and his drunken ways. Haven't seen him in ages, though.
*giggles* From his wikipedia entry: "His cooking shows are marked by a tendency to consume much wine during the preparation of the food."
Cooking is a very dehydrating job, you need to keep your levels up. Also, don't use wine for cooking you wouldn't drink.

[professoryaffle.livejournal.com]

to be fair to floyd if you see some of his more recent stuff like the indian tour he did he wasn't sloshed all the time and still a very good cook

[cabd.livejournal.com]

True. And still very entertaining.

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Jamie Oliver appeared in an advert for Sainsburys in which he was walking through a field with some farmer, talking about how great the butchers choice sausages were. Quick view of farmer with pigs, then the sausages...

Turns out that when you dig deeper, those sausages were made with indoor reared pork. No better than any other sausage, in terms of the animal welfare.

Then there was the advertising campaign where he talked about buying British asparagus, at which point Sainsburys promptly sold out and bought in tons of asparagus from Chile.

The whole thing with school dinners was commendable, but he has allowed his image to be used to further the cause of a supermarket chain that has no less questionable ethics than any other. You can't have it both ways, you either value your ethics above profit or you do not.

A friend of mine suggested that for his work with school meals he should be awarded a medal, that medal being pinned to him while stringing him up for the Sainsburys adverts. A little harsh, I think, but you get the point.

As for his recipes... Well they're okay, in a basic sort of way, and every generation seems to need the celebrity cook who tells you how to do that kind of thing. Used to be Delia, before that it was Fanny Craddock, going right back to Phillip Harben (the [i]origina[/i], and without doubt the [i]best[/i]).

Nigella is okay, but sometimes a bit fussy, a bit faffy, and rather too sweet toothed for me.

Of the current crop of celebrity chefs, I think that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall shines out as a sole voice of reason. Fine recipes, using proper ingredients, not usually too fussy, with a major emphasis on sourcing locally and ethically (thats if he hasn't talked you into growing, foraging, fishing and shooting your own food!).

[cabd.livejournal.com]

D'oh! Wrong sort of brackets. That'll teach me to try to be clever.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm not saying Jamie Oliver is a saint, just that I like his style of cooking.

*grins* I thought you'd be a fan of Hugh. :o)

[cabd.livejournal.com]

I've never been a huge fan of him on telly, his programes are fun but not informative enough. But his books (River Cottage Cookbook and River Cottage Meat Book especiall) are quite simply the best cook books published since Jane Grigson. Possibly better.

I dunno, with Jamie Olivers cooking, are you not sometimes left wondering 'Well? What of it? Roasting your veg with a few herbs, I've always done it that way'. Just a little uninspiring at times. I like his enthusiasm and passion for food, but I've not learned anything from him.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Isn't "River Cottage Foo" from the stable of Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-it-all.

Or whatever his real name is...

[cabd.livejournal.com]

Yes... And thats who I'd mentioned, and who Karohemd was referring to before O went back onto JO in the second sentence there.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

D'oh.

So you did. Sorry.

[lsur.livejournal.com]

I was going to make the erudite observation about Nigella and food-porn. Looking at your icon, though, I see you have already had that idea :-)