Latest Tweets:
I am a passionate believer in self expression. Whether it's through food, art, writing, venting one's spleen, talking loud, wearing a big hat, etc...
"
Another dollar earned pressing the buttons of catering nonsense.
This week I watched a couple of exceedingly frivolous episodes of Masterchef on BBC2 and it reminds me how many chefs still aspire to present a Picasso on a plate. Somewhere abstract impressionism is alive and getting very fat in a modern kitchen. It’s how uneducated, but skilful, souls refine their finer motor operations and prove they know their gauche from their gouache.
Today I chopped some parsley to a french required level purely for presentation, chives - same, dill - same. Visual represented green triffles to bolster over boiled potatoes, carrots and sprouts. No flavour consideration.
Tray upon tray of tarnishing cheese cakes - ready for eating except I had to remove the tidy flan case and ruin to juxtapose with wilted Xmas. Oh Brakes Bros you do concentrate out any aspiration of pallet originality and I am dragged screaming ‘this isn’t food’.
I earned my money and exited stage right.
To watch 3 bold people challenge this rusted Brake Bros convention,and put before the piggy(Greg Wallace) and the chef(Michel Roux Jr.) amazing creativity, can make me want to have been a chef since I was 16 too. All the skills they have in their repertoire stab blind those who over boil and roast to death, and garnish for nothing.
The plate should be cleaned by the act of eating. Not one scrap should be waiting the kitchen porter’s scrub, scour or brush. Once in another time the very plate was also edible: shouldn’t we return there too?
Ash was the star of the show: great skills and perfect presentation, but also a simplicity that Steve and Claire could resolve in their heady workout. I noticed Ash sweated most in his fury: I’ve been there when the sweat runs down the face as a saline drip.
Champions work up a sweat and toil relentlessly!
"