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whose Roux is who’s?

“Oooh! Wotsthat??!” I exclaimed as the 476 bus whizzed through North London just the other day. A poster advertising what looked like a cookery telly show, thatswot. But Roux Jr’s lovely, smiley, dark-eyed face was strangely replaced by a frown, a glare – rather scary. He was joined by a terrifying looking Rick Stein and Angela Hartnett seemed grumpy as heck. What could this mean? All these amazing chefs judging one show together – gonna be a-MAZING, amirite?

Nope.

The Roux Scholarship 2013 is a mish-mash of a programme. After the series opener it seems to be two parts Masterchef: The Professionals and one part The Apprentice. We return from each commercial break to meet our hosts, Roux Jr and his near incomprehensible uncle. For some reason they are at the top of the gherkin tower muttering ”WHO will be the winner of the Scholarship for 2013?” and “only ONE can be declared our winner!”

I could talk at length about this but, as usual, Mr Danny Baker sums up correctly: Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Fanny on June 15, 2013 in Alain Roux, Albert Roux, BBC, Chef's Protege, Good Food Channel, Masterchef The Professionals, Michel Roux, Michel Roux Jr, Theo Randall, Tom Kitchin, Watch Channel

Image

waaa!

25 May

waaa!

Anyone else see the ghost on Saturday Kitchen this morning? Or was it just Tom Kitchin?

(thanks to Kevin Pickering)

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Posted by takotsubo on May 25, 2013 in Saturday Kitchen

Tags: ghost

OzMC the Unending Ordeal*

09 May

*in a good sense

Is OzMC the crucible for all the best MC trial-by-concept moves? The just-ended O/G MC (feat.Toad&Gregface) seemed oddly and anxiously in its shadow — with the introduction of Toad’s make-my-masterpiece test a hurried and blodged redux of a Gary&George move. Natalie is lovely and clearly a deserving winner — in a very strong amateur final three — but the series seemed skimped and hurried, with the cutaway-to-gurning factor higher than ever. Too much cheaty editing. JohnT seemed uncharacteristically stressed in the later stages, also (and Gregface more unwatchably over-parodic; all these tics he doesn’t really earn by DOING anything except eating ~~and letching~~).**

Thing is, Gary&George (&Matt&Matt) give themselves so much generously longer, with their 90-mins masterclasses following the trials, and the endless succession of high-end cookery names cheerfully coming in to present the masterpieces to be there and then made at sight (and taste), and really almost none of them being as d!ckishly brittle as the worst sleb-chef guests on O/G MC. (I’m judging by 2011, which I’m currently watching on Really: it’s more than three months in, and we’ve just reached their final three. 2012 I haven’t seen.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by syllabubdobdee on May 9, 2013 in Australian, Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, Gregg Wallace, John Torode, Masterchef Australia

‘taters and tattoos

06 May

So, while looking for photographs to illustrate my recent Q&A with Chef Pizarro, I came across this link from the Financial Times of all places. Yes, it shows that my favourite chef has indeed got ink and as a fan of tattoos myself, it got me wondering what weird and wonderful culinary tattoos there are out there …

The answer is quite a few!

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Posted by Fanny on May 6, 2013 in Adventures in Cookery, Tattoos

question time

19 Apr

Having gone on about how awesome Jose Pizarro is, I thought I may as well put my money where my mouth is and got my people to contact his people. After lengthy negotiations and hardball tactics, Chef Pizarro cleared his busy schedule and answered a few questions for me!

Yeah, OK, not much negotiating took place, in fact Hannah at Nourish PR was absolutely delightful. Take it away:

Thank you, Jose for taking the time to answer my questions. I am a huge fan of Spanish food and drink (you and your food especially!) and have lots to ask. SO ..!

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Fanny on April 19, 2013 in Adventures in Cookery, Jose Pizarro, Spain

“there’s no drama like wrestling”

13 Apr

OK, OK, I had to shoe horn a wrestling angle in there somehow (all will become clear later)… that or a Marx Brothers quote.

There are always trends running through a Masterchef series and this year it seems to be duck, duck, duck (but no duck soup). The current run continues apace with another trend – women! Lots of them! Quarter finals, semi finals. Brilliant. About bloody time. There also seem to be a lot more curries than there have been in previous years or at least of the fiiiine diiiining caliber.

There have been some memorable moments already (the uber posh brothers, the ‘young grandmother’ who was a personal favourite, the dish that made Torode’s heart go thump) but my ultimate moment has to be the trip to Brasserie Joel for a lunch shift with Walter Ishizuka. Anyone familiar with American culture or comedy will hopefully be aware of the genius (and I don’t use that word lightly) that is Mr Andy Kaufman. He was a man of many characters and one of the funniest was Foreign Man with his accent and squeaky voice. FM became known as Latka Gravas in the hit show Taxi. I have no doubt in my mind that Chef Ishizuka is a serious, focused and talented man it just so happens that he speaks exactly like Foreign Man. Walter, I’m so sorry. I could not stifle my giggles and I am so glad that I was not part of that brigade – I would have been thrown out in no time and rightly so. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by Fanny on April 13, 2013 in American, BBC, Competition Genre, Gregg Wallace, John Torode, Masterchef UK, Wrestling