#3 The Naked Chef
27/03/20 20:28
This week, the larder’s been running a bit dry, since we can’t get an online delivery until spring 2021 and the local shop’s only selling dusty lasagne sheets. So we thought we’d tuck into a bit of Jamie Oliver’s Keep Cooking and Carry On for inspiration. He’s back in that nice kitchen that isn’t really his kitchen, but now, there’s a note of panic to his delivery which seems apt during a pandemic. The quickest commission in history, it was clearly also the hastiest shoot; the food show equivalent of Doctors – ‘shit, I sneezed into the chilli!’ ‘Never mind, the camera’s rolling, just keep going!’ So he’s grabbing whatever, chucking it into a saucepan and stirring it to see what happens. All credit to the skeleton production team for knocking this stuff out over a weekend.
Jamie may be a multimillionaire with an embarrassment of sweet potatoes, but he’s keen to show he understands your provisions may be dwindling, and you haven’t got the usual organic kale or Norfolk saffron in stock. Instead of cooking a lavish salmon, you could use a tin of tuna, or a pilchard you’ve got lying around, or your pet goldfish. And you can season it with paprika, or pepper, or some fluff from under the kitchen counter. Anything really – whatever you’ve got is fine. It’s ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ for cooking, and I imagine the outcome might vary wildly from household to household – one man’s veggie chilli is another’s fish pie.
At one point, the Jamester went slightly insane and started making three different pasta sauces at once, which made for rather hectic viewing – less Keep Cooking and Carry On, more Panic and Over-Cater. It was a dinner party waiting to happen - waiting about four months to happen, if forecasts are accurate. As if that wasn’t enough, he suddenly decided to make fresh pasta out of flour and water, which was startlingly basic, and not particularly appetising. Next, he’ll be conjuring rice out of shredded paper and making soup from leftover coffee. But he’ll still be relentlessly upbeat and jaunty, presenting his creations proudly, as if we can’t see he hasn’t got any clothes on.
I can’t help thinking Jamie’s not really the man for the job here (Jack Monroe is). Also, I was totally waiting for one of the forty-seven Oliver children to bustle in like South Korean expert Robert Kelly’s daughter, demanding daddy come and build rockets out of toilet rolls. They missed a trick there. In fact, in this strange new world we find ourselves in, I’d prefer to see him doing some half-hearted home-schooling and annoying Jules with his plans to build a home smoker out of baked bean tins. We’ve all given up the day jobs, but Jamie’s carrying on, and the tension is palpable.
As the nation’s TV development teams struggle to devise isolation-friendly formats to rush out in a hurry, I’m available for consultation. Next, I’d like to see Nigella going grocery shopping in a mask and latex gloves, having been let down by Ocado, doing a trawl of corner shops to buy out-of-date noodles and dubious bacon, trying to work out what to do with it, then giving up and hitting her stockpile of ancient liqueurs and Oreo bites. Or Nigel forsaking his beloved local butcher in favour of a scrag end he found in a ransacked Sainsbury’s aisle, attempting to turn it into a nourishing stew while taking increasingly desperate sips from a tumbler of vinegary sherry. TV chefs trying to make silk purses out of sows’ ears, turning to drink when it inevitably goes tits up. Like the rest of us, basically.
Jamie may be a multimillionaire with an embarrassment of sweet potatoes, but he’s keen to show he understands your provisions may be dwindling, and you haven’t got the usual organic kale or Norfolk saffron in stock. Instead of cooking a lavish salmon, you could use a tin of tuna, or a pilchard you’ve got lying around, or your pet goldfish. And you can season it with paprika, or pepper, or some fluff from under the kitchen counter. Anything really – whatever you’ve got is fine. It’s ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ for cooking, and I imagine the outcome might vary wildly from household to household – one man’s veggie chilli is another’s fish pie.
At one point, the Jamester went slightly insane and started making three different pasta sauces at once, which made for rather hectic viewing – less Keep Cooking and Carry On, more Panic and Over-Cater. It was a dinner party waiting to happen - waiting about four months to happen, if forecasts are accurate. As if that wasn’t enough, he suddenly decided to make fresh pasta out of flour and water, which was startlingly basic, and not particularly appetising. Next, he’ll be conjuring rice out of shredded paper and making soup from leftover coffee. But he’ll still be relentlessly upbeat and jaunty, presenting his creations proudly, as if we can’t see he hasn’t got any clothes on.
I can’t help thinking Jamie’s not really the man for the job here (Jack Monroe is). Also, I was totally waiting for one of the forty-seven Oliver children to bustle in like South Korean expert Robert Kelly’s daughter, demanding daddy come and build rockets out of toilet rolls. They missed a trick there. In fact, in this strange new world we find ourselves in, I’d prefer to see him doing some half-hearted home-schooling and annoying Jules with his plans to build a home smoker out of baked bean tins. We’ve all given up the day jobs, but Jamie’s carrying on, and the tension is palpable.
As the nation’s TV development teams struggle to devise isolation-friendly formats to rush out in a hurry, I’m available for consultation. Next, I’d like to see Nigella going grocery shopping in a mask and latex gloves, having been let down by Ocado, doing a trawl of corner shops to buy out-of-date noodles and dubious bacon, trying to work out what to do with it, then giving up and hitting her stockpile of ancient liqueurs and Oreo bites. Or Nigel forsaking his beloved local butcher in favour of a scrag end he found in a ransacked Sainsbury’s aisle, attempting to turn it into a nourishing stew while taking increasingly desperate sips from a tumbler of vinegary sherry. TV chefs trying to make silk purses out of sows’ ears, turning to drink when it inevitably goes tits up. Like the rest of us, basically.
- Keep Cooking and Carry On, Channel 4
