Tag Archives: Jamie Oliver

I’ve been making scrambled eggs for myself for years with varying levels of quality. None of the tips I’ve read or seen really did the trick for ensuring consistent success in the perfection department. Until I watched the Scotland episode of Jamie’s Great Britain on 4od. I’ve been watching Jamie Oliver on TV pretty much since he was on TV to start with, so at this point, I never really expect to learn something new and practical from him, but I always do. It’s crazy.

Anyway, he was doing potato scones then using the same pan for the eggs, and he was like, the pan’s already well hot enough, just take it off the heat and make your eggs in it that way. And goddammit, it WORKS. I’ve always just turned the heat way down, but never thought to take the pan off altogether. So the next morning, I heated up my pan, took it off the heat, melted the butter, and proceeded to make the most perfect scrambled eggs I’ve ever made. And I’ve repeated the process 2 more times since then with the same results. Not too dry, not too mushy, perfectly cooked all the way through. Try it. It seems to be foolproof.

So that was my egg success. The failure was simply a lesson in ‘always have more eggs than you need for a recipe involving separating them’. Luckily, I did, because earlier in the day, I made the decision to buy extra eggs since that would mean more scrambled egg breakfasts if I didn’t need them for my cookies.

So I was having to separate a bunch of eggs for making cinnamon star cookies. And as usual when trying to separate eggs, I was trying to get clean, straight cracks by doing it on the counter. And on what was supposed to be the last one, I cracked it with normal force and the whole thing just opened up all over the counter.

In all my years of cracking eggs, this has NEVER happened. And I have been cracking eggs for at least 15 years. It was just straight up full egg on the counter. How on earth do you go about cleaning that up in a logical way? You can’t pick it up, and you can’t really sweep it off the edge of the counter without egg dripping in all sorts of weird places. Luckily I was sort of next to the sink, so I tried to squeegie it in there with my hand as best I could.

But seriously, how are you meant to pick up a full raw egg off a flat surface? Anyone? Jamie?

Spruced up computerbox, dogsitting, and travel plans

24 January 2011

Beer, Drink, Food, long weekends, Restaurants, Travel, Uncategorized

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I’ve just realised it’s time-to-blog-Monday and I have nothing planned for interwebs sharing this week. So a quick few things off the top of my head instead. I want to keep the Monday blogging going, even if it’s silly stuff. Plus I didn’t manage to go swimming last week, which is something else I wanted to keep going, so I shan’t let more than one ball drop at a time. I think that’s plenty of slack to give my own good intentions.

The reason I haven’t had enough headspace to think about a proper post is that I’ve been dogsitting (Hooray, dogs!) and by extention, housesitting. I decided not to bring my computer over to the house so I could get some reading and knitting done instead of some being distracted by technology. Anyway, the most amusing part of said dogsitting so far was Gabriel, the 9-year-old black lab, half whining, half snarling at the TV during a particularly dreadful toilet paper commercial which employs CG puppies in the roles of normal human beings. He was clearly just as disgusted at the trend as Scott and I. See, dogs really ARE smart. And they know crap when they see it.

Just before I left our flat to take up residence with the dogs, I upgraded my macbook pro, which had still been running OS X Tiger, to Snow Leopard. I also cleaned it up nice and shiny with the cleaning kit I bought at the same time as the upgrade. I haven’t had a chance to really put it all to the test yet, but the whole thing was a result of convincing myself at the last minute that I did NOT yet need a new computer, I just needed to do a little sprucing up.

Freddie Macury has been running well for over 4 years now (eat that, every PC laptop me and every other member of my family has ever owned!) and I think he’s still got some life in him yet. So I’ve decided to hold out as long as possible. That way I’ll get an even better new computer when the time comes. In the meantime, I think it’s also time to change my desktop wallpaper, as it’s been the same for nearly as long as I’ve had the computer (a misty view from Calton Hill). I may get some extra memory to speed it up a bit if I can find it cheap. I think going from 1GB to 2GB will make all the difference I need at the moment.

In other news, Scott and I are going to London this weekend as a result of cheap-as-hell train tickets. We got a nice-ish hotel room, using Christmas money from my grandmas to extend our budget so we could stay somewhere much nicer than we normally would. And I have grand food-related plans for the trip. I also want to go to the V&A, since I’ve never been. Look at all the cool stuff they’ve got on at the moment!

I don’t generally love London, but there are a lot of shops there that are nowhere else (especially for the big-footed), and LOADS of good food going on. Here’s what’s on the list this time around:

Wahaca
Originally, we were going to try the Chipotle that opened in London. But then I read a bunch of reviews from people with Chipotle love stating that A) it’s way overpriced, even for London, and B) it’s not up to Chipotle standard. So then I stumbled across Wahaca, which looks tasty and well-priced.

Barbecoa
We were going to go back to Jamie’s Italian, but I discovered one opened in Glasgow, so it’s close by now. And then I discovered the man opened a meat and fire restaurant and obviously, I have to try it if possible.

Greenwich Market
For some kind of crazy market food.

Meantime Brewery
Beer, of course.

La Fromagerie
Wine and cheese. Go to the website just to watch the cows walk across the screen. Cows!

Bagels in Brick Lane
I have to see if they’re as good as they’re supposed to be.

Vapiano
As always, I can’t resist. I love the place.

Anthony Bourdain and Modest Mouse

30 August 2010

Books, Entertainment, Food, Music

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On Saturday night, I went to see Anthony Bourdain talk about his new book, travelling, and of course, food, at the book festival. It was fantastic! He was promoting Medium Raw, which is a sort of follow-up to Kitchen Confidential. He chose to read a bit of it about making his 2.5-year-old daughter believe that Ronald McDonald is a smelly, cootie-having child-eater in order to prevent her from wanting McDonald’s evil, disgusting offerings, which was absolutely hilarious. Then he basically answered a bunch of questions from the audience – some good, some pompous, but all handled with the same no-bullshit attitude. Save for a slightly overharsh poke at vegetarianism, I agreed with pretty much everything he said about food, travel, and life in general.

Bourdain did mention Jamie Oliver briefly during the event to give him props, but not before admitting Oliver annoys the crap out of him. But it’s good to see he’s the kind of person who can credit someone for what they stand for even if he doesn’t particularly enjoy the way they go about it. I mean, Anthony Bourdain is pretty much the polar opposite of Jamie Oliver in terms of attitude and the way he presents himself in general, but they have similar philosophies about food and the food industry, and I like that that can come across in two totally different, and yet equally refreshing, ways.

The other big difference between the two is that Bourdain comes from the French school of cookery, while Oliver clearly comes from the Italian. My own cooking has nearly no French influence, but I finally bought Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Les Halles’ Cookbook before the book festival event, and it’s absolutely awesome. I can’t wait to start learning the basics, French style. I think my first adventure will be Rillettes, because hello! Pork and fat? Best thing on the planet. Why did I not know about this before? There are clearly whole worlds of culinary delight that have not yet opened up before me in my short life. Thank you, Anthony Bourdain, for continuing my enlightenment.

I didn’t get my cookbook signed by the way, because the queue for signing was so incredibly long that I decided having a beer was a better use of my time. And I figured Anthony would appreciate the opportunity to get to the bar himself that little bit quicker by having one less thing to sign.

My weekend continued on its path of awesome on Sunday night, when I got to see Modest Mouse at the HMV Picture House courtesy of some seriously generous friends. First of all, barring the 9:30 Club, which is the greatest venue of all time, the Picture House is now my favourite place to see a show. It’s similar in size to the 9:30 Club, and it has a brilliant balcony with cushy bench seating for lame-o old people like me who can’t be bothered to stand up with all the sweaty folk down in front of the stage. Absolutely love it.

I didn’t think I was going to get to see Modest Mouse because I had decided not to buy any more concert tickets for the year after spending so much on Gorillaz tickets. But then that got cancelled and I just kind of forgot about Modest Mouse til Thursday, when by luck and the awesomeness of others, I was put on the guest list.

And seriously, lucky me. Because the show was fantastic. They had two drummers! They had loads of crazy instruments! They played the hell out of everything, and it was an amazing wall of sound. I was occasionally a little bummed by the fact that the vocals were sometimes drowned out by the music, but the mixing desk is downstairs, so that could be a part of that, and it didn’t matter too much in the end, because the quality of the instrumental stuff was just so, so incredibly good.

And I have to say, I do like a band who don’t think too much about what they’re wearing on stage. I don’t mind theatricality and dressing up either, but sometimes it’s refreshing to see a guy in a thermal henley playing accordions and horns and whatnot and being awesome at all of it without obviously giving two shits about fashion.

I didn’t get into Modest Mouse until the time in my life when I didn’t bother to find out much about the bands I was getting into aside from actually listening to as much of their stuff as possible, so they’ve always been strictly musical for me. I didn’t even know what they looked like as people. I don’t know their names. Nothing. I just love what they do. And I’m delighted to say they do what they do damn well live on stage.

Jamie’s Italian, Canary Wharf

9 February 2010

Food, long weekends, Restaurants

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We just had a lovely long weekend in London visiting my friends Seema and Paul, who live near Canary Wharf in a little flat with an awesome river view. It was great to see them and have a bit of a mini break. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of London, but I like going to visit friends and I love some of the food you can find in the city. Jamie Oliver’s new chain of Italian restaurants have been lurking on the edge of my radar for a while now, and I heard a while ago that he’d finally opened one in London. Conveniently, it’s in Canary Wharf, about ten minutes’ walk from Seema and Paul’s. So on Sunday night, we went. Obviously.

Jamie's Italian, Canary Wharf

Now. Please excuse me while I once again sing Jamie Oliver’s praises. The man is a food deity.

Jamie’s Italian is a family restaurant. They don’t take reservations, so anyone can just walk in, immune to the hype a famous chef’s name might bring to the ability to get a seat in a restaurant. It’s not a fancy-pants establishment and it’s not meant to be. It’s decorated simply with a mishmash of different kinds of chairs and simple wood tables and there’s various fresh food all over the place. And it’s very affordable. The pasta dishes are no more expensive than Bella Italia (a big UK chain), and to be fair, they’re probably far better value judging by the quality of what I ate. I can’t honestly comment on the pasta, because I had meat, which was amazing, but more on that later.

We started with a carafe of the house wine, which is organic and delivered to them in environmentally friendly tetra pacs to keep costs down, then decanted for the table. It was great, and only £15 for a bottle-sized carafe. In the middle of London! Score! With that we got a bread basket that had about 4 different kinds of fresh, freaking amazing bread in it. I could have eaten tons of the stuff. There was crispy flatbread with rosemary, foccacia with garlic, rosemary and salt, breadsticks, and plain old white italian bread. All served with olive oil and vinegar, of course. We also got an artesian meat board of wild boar salami.

I could have eaten antipasti all night, but the thing I was really excited about was my main course. I haven’t eaten veal many times in my life, and not at all since I found out how cruelly they raise veal calves. So we’re talking years and years and years here. Recently in the UK, thanks to various crusades led on the celebrity chef side by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and on the production side by some awesome British farms, rose veal has popped into existence. ‘Rose’ because the meat isn’t white, because completely white veal requires the kind of horrible, boxed-up life most traditional veal calves lead. (For more info, read this article from a few years ago.)

I’m completely for rose veal, because veal can be a completely ethical thing to eat, and should be. Veal calves come from the dairy industry, which can’t use male calves, of course, so because of the drop in demand for veal raised in horrible conditions, many of these animals are just destroyed, which is an absolute waste and pretty horrible. The calves used to produce rose veal are not raised in a box they can’t ever move around in. Instead they have a good, healthy life where they can walk around, grazing, doing cow-type things, eating solid foods, and even be around their mothers (or stand-in mothers) for a while.

I like eating meat from animals that I know have lived a happy life, and I know that all the meat served in Jamie’s restaurants is pretty much guaranteed to be ethically produced. But you don’t find something like rose veal in your typical Italian chain restaurant these days. Jamie Oliver putting it on the menu at his place is a huge step forward for getting a variety of quality, ethically produced meat into more and more UK high street restaurants. At £15.95, the rose veal is one of the most expensive things on the menu, but that is a damn good price for the enormous, tasty, stuffed rose veal chop that I ate with relish and pleasure. It was so good I was literally sopping up the sauce with my fingers when it was gone. Seriously. Ask Scott.

Scott, by the way, had one of the specials, Porcetta, which is roast pork belly stuffed with all kinds of amazing things. It was just as good as my veal. I probably could have eaten both of them twice over.

Now, as we were going all out, we ordered dessert and coffee as well. I had the chocolate hazelnut cake and Scott had the lemon ricotta cheesecake. Both extremely tasty. And after such a big meal, I didn’t feel disgustingly stuffed like one sometimes does when overdoing it. None of the portions were that extra bit too big. If I had been feeling more gluttonous, I would have ordered more, because walking past the open kitchen on the way upstairs to the toilets revealed plates and plates of deliciousness just waiting to go out. (I love when the kitchen is open, because then you know there’s no shady stuff going on and you can see what the food is like before you even sit down.) And let’s just say it took all my will power to not yoink one of the enormous loaves of focaccia from the bread table and stuff it under my shirt to get it out of there for stuffing my face later in the night.

To top it all off, we were brought the bill in good time without having to chase someone down for it. This is so rare in this country that I nearly fainted.

There are many, many reasons why I think Jamie Oliver deserves the praise and attention of the world, but the essence of why I think he’s so awesome is his simple approach to a healthy obsession with food. He wants everyone to learn how to cook, and love to do so. His recipes aren’t fussy and niether are his restaurants (including Fifteen, which, while slightly more upscale, isn’t pretentious in the least. In fact, the whole idea behind that restaurant is about as un-stuffy as you can get.). He’s really just all about loving and respecting food and what comes around it—family, friends, life. The Jamie’s Italian chain is a great example of this philosophy, and I really, really hope it keeps growing. I know I’d be a regular if he opened one in Edinburgh.