Delia, The Return

Fear not dearest Nigella. Delia will definitely NOT be overtaking you in the express cooking stakes.

I must say that I was sadly disappointed with Delia’s comeback on TV and it seems I’m not alone when I say I feel Delia should probably retire and stick to football, which has obviously overtaken her food obsession since we last saw her in the kitchen.

Gone is the plum in her mouth, and the condescending tone, but both at a price (I was never a great fan of her TV persona). Us busy people should now be cooking with tinned mince, and frozen mash potato, which I never even knew existed until Monday. Even my cat wouldn’t eat it if his young life depended on it (and he eats most things). Peeling a potato, it would seem, has ever been so easy. Our children never need know what that small brown jewel of the soil either looks, or tastes like, thanks to our once great Delia. Never mind, that she used enough of the tiny frozen demons to plaster a wall, there was no mention of how much they would cost the oh-so-busy wannabe fake cook.

My tip: Give up the job, lose the salary and actually prepare it yourself. I bet you’d still have enough money left over for a curry!

Every meal she prepared in the first episode contained her new found friend. Fish bake, shepherd’s pie and, the once ‘queen’ of the cooking world, even managed to bung a couple in a soup, make bread AND a cake out of the gruesome stuff! I think if she’d had more time, she would have even bathed in the stuff advertising its health benefits!
The only thing worse than the mash portions was the unconvincingly, groveling support of Nigel Slater. Was he given shares in NC to appear? I wonder.

I do think our dear 'D' has somewhat lost the plot. We have been exposed to so much over the last few years on sourcing and cooking good food. Most importantly on knowing where our food comes from or how it's made. Once she was an inspiration to us all. She boasted that fresh was best and we believed her. Recently, the likes of Hugh and Jamie have opened up a whole new world. OK, the fact processed meat was full of crap and it's actually killing us has been shoved down our throats until we finally get the point but we can't turn back now. THESE are the chefs that got ME in the kitchen to try and cook a healthier diet for my family and THESE are the mentors who got me trying, and mostly failing, to grow my own.

It happens that I now enjoy being in the kitchen, when once it was a chore. Busy or not, we need to emphasis the importance of what we put in our mouths, not play it down because we're too busy with the rat race. We got back to basics, we can't start cutting corners again.

I thought the days of Mash get smash were dead and buried!

Ask yourself - Are you really too busy to peel a potato?

Fortunately for Delia, and her publishers, she is a top-selling brand and any book by her will fly to the top of the bestseller list. She has a diehard, albeit in my opinion, sight challenged fan base, who as I type are burning my posts and recipes. One loyal member posted, ‘If you don’t want to use tinned mince, use fresh’ and ‘you can always substitute this ingredient for that ingredient’. Err…hello??! What’s the point in buying the book then!

Incidentally, the site was advertising McD’s on its homepage until I eloquently pointed it out to the Editor who replied in its defence by saying the ads are run by an outside agency, over which they have no control. She added ‘no ads, no site. It’s that simple’. Much like Delia’s latest quest to wow us with her, once inspirational recipes, I fear her site, like her has well and truly sold out.

Remarkably though, the MacD's ad later disappeared.

We can but hope that other TV chefs won’t all trade the humble potato for the Pound and jump on the Delia gravy train!

Let’s face it, had anyone else come up with such a farce of a cook book, would we, or I, even be giving it lip service!

Tasteof-mylife.blogspot.com

Fishing v Cooking Part I

I have come to the conclusion that my husband and I are obsessive, or should I say we both have an obsession for one thing. Unfortunately his is catching fish and mine cooking them and our paths cross somewhere in the middle. Alas, life would be harmonious if the fish he caught, I COULD actually cook, but sadly not. Aside from the legalities and dare I say, not being from Eastern Europe, the thought of stuffing and baking one of the specimens from the Grand Union doesn’t really appeal as it would probably kill us !

We often fight for space in the kitchen to prepare delicious morsals, me for the kids, and him for his precious fish ! Our passion for ingredients match our enthusiasm in preparing and experimenting with different flavours. HIS latest thing is making his own boilies (for those not in the know, these are little bait balls you stick on the end of a hook)! My cupboards are crammed full of spices which I often find half emptied due to his desire to come up with the next greatest fish-catching flavour of the year. I should thank him really as his need for a blender to grind up the cat biscuits (don’t ask!), peanuts and anything else that will blunt the blade, I gave him my cheap one and bought a new Kenwood ! The fact that he has ribbed me for a month that I haven’t actually used it yet in order to justify 120.00 purchase price is neither here nor there.
I have, however, been able to help him with my almost vast knowledge of ingredients, for his attempts at preparing his homemade bait. He often asks me ‘what can I stick in this to make it sweeter?’ or, ‘If I blend this with this, what will it taste like?’
Fortunately for my children, I don’t need his advice for my own compulsion. ‘Which brand of cat biscuits shall I put in their lunch box today ?’ or, ‘What colour maggots should I stick in the beef stew tonight dear ?’ are not usually questions that pop into my head.

So, today, after returning from a 24 fishorama at a local lake, windswept, cold, wet and hungry, I have to ask him the inevitable question ‘What’s the point? You could have stayed home, eaten salmon and got a decent night’s sleep?’. I guess the answer to that is simple. For the same reason I purchase 3 or 4 cooking magazines a month, record, and watch every single episode of Saturday Kitchen, Something for the weekend, Nigella or Masterchef, and, subsequently scour the shops for my all important ingredients. It’s an obsession, a compulsion, an overwhelming need to prove to oneself (and anyone else who’ll listen) that you could actually be GOOD at something.

My desire to cook, and his desire to fish may be miles apart, but one things for sure, the Garam Massala is ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY MINE !!

For those of you who ARE more interested in catching fish than eating them, please check out my husband's blog, yes about fishing at andywhapham.blogspot.com

tasteof-mylife.blogspot.com