Andrew Kay: Cook it!
September brought with it, as it always does, the Brighton & Hove Food Festival and in the weeks that ran up to it I became increasingly aware of the fact that I had stopped cooking. As well as loving to dine out I have always loved to cook and to entertain. But of late I have been far from entertaining, eating on the hoof or snacking in an alarming way that I thought I would never see. I have even indulged in a few ready meals. I know, I know but what’s a boy to do?
Preparations for the food festival are intense and I spend rather a lot of time with my co-directors inventing events to entertain the public and raise the profile of what has become one of the biggest food festivals in the UK, gaining international acclaim as well as national plaudits.
“I then spend ten days standing up in front of food lovers making a fool of myself to gain a few laughs and put a smile on people’s faces”
I then spend ten days standing up in front of food lovers making a fool of myself to gain a few laughs and put a smile on people’s faces. It tends to work although after a few snifters my humour can get a little edgy as audiences in Kingston upon Thames recently discovered.
At the same time as doing all this I am busily involved in producing a weekly food programme for the very exciting launch of Latest TV in Spring of next year. Fortunately for me with my scant, if negligible knowledge of telly making, I’m working with real pros and they are certainly making me work hard on creating a format that is not only fun but is also informative.
I love dining out and love restaurant food. I also love cooking at home. I don’t see why I need to try to combine the two, but that is what so much TV cooking seems to be about these days. Top restaurant chefs seem hell-bent on showing us how to smear, stack and drizzle our food onto plates. It looks pretty, but it can look pretty awful too in less than competent hands.
Our programme, provisionally called Cook it!, is intended to be the antidote to poncy food. We plan to cook fresh and affordable dishes that can be achieved at home with basic skills and equipment. Filmed with a live audience we will ask members of the public to join professional chefs and cooks in the kitchen preparing simple but tasty dishes.
We will also be helping create a basic set of ingredients and pots and pans etc to start taking cooking seriously, plus specials filmed in local restaurants where we will feature a particular style of cooking. And woe betide any chef who starts with the smearage and drizzle, it will be off to the naughty corner for them.
I plan to cook too, yes live on the telly, imagine what a mess that could be! No seriously, if I am going to do this then I am going to do it well.
I will also be joined by many of my foodie friends, challenging them to make dishes that we can all enjoy and achieve without breaking the bank. There will be a weekly kids spot too, encouraging children to get into the kitchen and cook it!
I started cooking when I was about nine, in the kitchen with my mum or with my grandfather, pies, cakes, roasts and stews – they let me join in with it all, and I learned so much at their knees, things that I still use today.
With the re-emergence of traditional British cuisine, and I don’t mean that silly deconstructed nonsense either, I hope we will be able to present a face of cooking that is appealing in many ways. Delicious of course, it has to be that. Affordable, the dishes that we would want to make a regular part of our diet and not just celebration food. And fun! Watch this space!
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