Good Food channel

During my cooking course I’ve been staying with my brother and he has Virgin Media, so I’ve been watching the Good Food channel on channel 260. I have enjoyed watching some of the shows, but it’s not worth us getting Virgin Media at home just for this channel!

Some of the shows:

• Market Kitchen Showdown –  they repeat past episodes chosen around a theme (e.g. best pork dish) and get guests to rate the recipes. It’s an OK show and I watch it because Jun Tanaka appears on it, but I find the guests who rate the dishes quite annoying as they keep saying “I like it, but it looks a bit ‘cheffy’ so I’m not going to rate it too highly”. Erm, they’re chefs. What do you expect?!
• Oliver’s Twist – this is Jamie Oliver’s new show and I’ve only managed to catch a few episodes. I like his laisser faire approach to food and cooking. I really enjoyed his series Jamie At Home, as he talked so much about growing vegetables, so I found it quite useful.
• Barefoot Contessa – this is an American show hosted by Ina Garten and I watched it when we were living in San Francisco. I was very tempted to buy her cooking books, but the majority of her food seems to be quite calorific!
• Bill’s Holiday – this is Bill Granger’s new show based on food grown in Australia. I used to really like him, but he’s a bit cheesy now and his voice is quite annoying!
• Two Fat Ladies – I generally don’t like the look of anything they cook, but I’ve just seen Clarissa Dickson Wright make a Chocolate Crème Brûlée so I’m going to be making that!
• Rick Stein’s Food Heroes – I can’t stand Rick Stein, but I’m too lazy to change channels when he’s on. I’m not sure what exactly it is about him that annoys me so much. I think it’s because he plays up to the camera too much and tries to show off. For example he visited a garlic farm in Scotland and he peeled a clove of garlic and ate it raw. From the look on his face it just seemed as if he wanted to prove a point that he’s such a big man for eating raw garlic, not because he actually enjoyed it!
• Ace of Cakes – this is a really cool American show that I got to see in San Francisco. It’s about a speciality cake shop in Baltimore which is owned by Chef Duff and they create the most AMAZING cakes! You really have to see it to appreciate how impressive they are.
• Hairy Bikers – LEGENDS! These were all repeats but I don’t get tired of watching these guys!
• Rhodes Across China – I find Gary Rhodes incredibly annoying (about the same amount as Rick Stein!) and I only watched this series because I was interested in the food and seeing the different places he visited in China. It was an interesting series but Rhodes just wanted to do things his own way, even though he was in China to learn how to cook authentic Chinese food so that he could cook a banquet when he got home. I personally think he’s far too arrogant and stubborn to learn anything new.

What’s on TV?

Last night the new series of The Supersizers started on BBC 2 and it was a hilarious episode as they revisited the food of the eighties! I’ll admit I got overly excited when they mentioned Potato Waffles (well I never said I was a foodie snob!) and Steve and I both cringed when they ate Ice Magic!

I’ve always liked Sue Perkins from when she did Light Lunch with Mel Giedroyc (yes I did have to look up the spelling of her name!) and I think she’s brilliant in this programme with Giles Coren. They bounce off each other so well and their funny bickering is like brother and sister.

Another programme I enjoyed watching recently was the Blood, Sweat and Takeaways, which was a series of 4 episodes. It followed a group of young British people who went to work in the Far East in the food industry. They had to work in food factories processing tuna and chicken, and also out in the paddy fields to grow rice and build mud walls for a prawn farm.

Of course they bitched and moaned about having to do actual hard work, which was incredibly irritating, but it was interesting to watch them change their views on things. They realised how much they (and the rest of us) take for granted, whilst the people who have to work their fingers to the bone doing disgusting, backbreaking jobs because they don’t have any other choice.

It definitely raised my awareness about where our food comes from and I highly recommend watching it whilst it’s still available on BBCi Player.