Posts by: rick 13

It's funny how tastes differ!

I would almost nominate an exact opposite of your list

Ainsley at the bottom Sorry but I think he's on the TV an awful lot already

Barefoot Contessa / Masterchef GL are 2 of my favourites

Also enjoyed The Best when it was on years ago - wish they'd make another series

gastrosurf - I can't argue with any of your reasoning about supply and demand

I still think it's a shame. If you go to a Spanish supermarket, for example, the demand is for fresh, local food.
Most of the store is made up of fish / meat / deli counters all local with a few aisles for dry goods etc. No ready meals etc

I think it's probably too late, but I think there is value in promoting local / fresh / seasonal ingredients (not least because they taste better and the profits stay in the local economy)

However, as you say blaming the supply side (ie supermarkets) is wrong as they are just cashing in

Education of children in home economics would be a good start
Fresh food especially fish and meat from local sources tastes a lot better than the same from my local Tescos

It's more expensive but I choose to eat it, just less often, and to be more economical to offset the extra (eg pigs trotters / bones / wild rabbit are all gorgeous and the butchers practically give them away)

So I agree with your argument and I'm not criticising tescos
I don't live in a quaint house and there are no food shops left in my town but I've managed to avoid the supermarkets for the last year completely and I've actually saved a bit of money

mitch - I don't know if you live anywhere near the country but usually free range chickens are sold at the farm gate if you ring around

Has everyone had the survey come up when you log into the site

I did today for the first time

Asked about what we thought of Waitrose and Market kitchen
Presumably Waitrose are getting a bit nervous about linking to MK

At least it gives a chance to give feedback someone might actually read

Hi BBQ

I used to quite like her recipes but found her a bit dull frankly.
It was a shame because that's exactly the sort of show I like normally

I'd like to see a show with an English speaking Spanish cook going round the regions of Spain as the cooking there is so regional

TV bosses always have strange ideas though - like sending Gino Da Campo to Mexico (why?? - what's wrong with sending a Mexican)

I found a super-obscure channel called "Living in Spain" - I don't know the number but it's near the bottom of the lifestyle section on the sky listings

Basically it's aimed at the ex-pat community in Spain and all the progs look as if they cost about 25 Euros to make

Found a great little programme called Tapas with a twist

No frills, just a Spanish chef with no great TV presentation skills but enough to stand there and cook nice looking food

So far I've seen great recipes without any distracting background or egos

I've always felt we need more Spanish shows presented by Spaniards - there must be loads of bilingual Spaniards who can cook (as opposed to Floyd / Jamie Oliver / Rick Stein just going there)

I've been to an ethical foie gras farm in France - all free range ducks and certainly after that experience I had no probs eating their product

No doubt a lot of places are not so good but I think most ducks are reared appallingly in this country so I think the average crispy duck in your local chinese prob had a much worse life.

Anyway back on topic - MF KISSED MT - sounds revolting

ponders - I think you'll find them in aisle 11 just next to the locusts

Hi homebrewer

I have a vegan friend who I have to find Vegan wines for when she comes for a dinner party

The yeast is not a problem - she says they are in the same class of organism as fungi, so she also eats bread

It's the finings they put in to remove the sediment that can contain animal products eg gelatin

I agree - 80% pork means nothing.

A great sausage will have a number of cuts of meat with different fat contents and other non meat ingredients. The key is the quality of the meat, how it was reared and the skill of the butcher

Making an artificial number like 80% just means the manufacturers will stuff them with 80% of the cheapest leftover cuts from the most poorly reared animals

Much better for Matthew to encourage us to source our food from farm shops etc if we can

Jackwagstaff

I'm interested in your comment that as a mother of 4 Tana's comments are well worth listening to

I've got no children - does that make me less of a "foodie"

If she had 5 children would she be even more worth listening to??

can someone correct me if I'm wrong here

I've seen several people eg Billy2blues above say MK is live

I thought it was pre-recorded. It certainly seems that way

That was one of my suggestions for improving it. Live shows automatically have more spontanaity and humour I feel, and are less scripted

Also cooking is not a rigid science - sometimes things go wrong even to the pros. Live cookery shows are more interesting as you sometimes see how they react when things are not perfect eg sauces split

I suspect Simon Rimmer is moving on to better things

He's an excellant natural presenter and very good chef and is appearing more on BBC

Although we are all UKTVfood viewers (presumably) there are very few of us compared to any program on terrestrial TV.

I bet Simon and Clarissa turned MK down flat when they got better offers (and read the script!)

Hiya

I'm not sure about from Bunny to pot Sounds a bit extreme even by Mike's standards

I have book calles Wild Flavours by him which is not bad. I don't know if he's written a more specialist book for the shooting set!

I agree Davey

I never really watched her till GFL stopped - now it's the only programme on the network I do watch

Interesting to see her viewing figures seem to have gone up and up so it seems we're not alone...

[link]

Hi Dunpayin

It's a shame your butcher is so unhelpful!

I love heart and get it in my local farmshop butcher (Adsdean near Chichester) along with sweetbreads, cheap wild rabbit and just about anything you could wish for!

Obviously this is no help if you don't live near, but I use Hugh Fearnley-W's website [link] which has a searchable list of shops.

I would ring round the butchers and farm shops.

I'm sure a good butcher would be delighted to speak to you as they like people to eat the rarer cuts of meat otherwise they have to bin them

I watched this for the first time for a week or so to see if had improved

Unfortunately it was identical

Trying to be positive - why do Tana, TBP and Matthew have to cook at all.
They're not chefs, and I think part of the toe-curlingly embarrassing feeling I get watching this is caused by (for example) seeing Michael caines cooking a beautiful chicken with an interesting braised chickory.

Then we had to sit through TBP roasting a chicken with a lemon in and serving it with peas and gravy. Even the studio audience looked as if they couldn't believe it.

I've nothing against Tana or Tom as individuals, but the program is trying to do two things at once.
It is partly decent chefs showing interesting recipes (1 or 2 per one hour show) and partly amateurs cooking bacon sandwichs, fish pie etc which suits a programme aimed at maybe teenagers about to go to university

Why not just let the presenters present and the cooks cook

Also lose the rediculous pretence it's all fresh / seasonal /set in a market

It's pre-recorded and set in a TV studio

Hope this helps as I would really like to see a decent programme on UKTVfood again

I notice from here
[link]

that MK's first show got 63000 (compared to 32-35 000 for GFL the week before)
There are no other entries in the top 10 however, so I guess after the first show when we all watched it to check it out the audience for the rest of the week must have been less than 31000

Woops - that's quite a drop

I heard the programme is made 2 weeks in advance si I guess next week will be the first time they'll have had a chance to react to all the criticism.

I've been trying to give this week's presenters the benefit so I've struggled through most of this week's shows

But Tom PB's bacon sandwich!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing

They had a feature on how great the pork was (fair enough) then Tom fried about 50 rashers

He then advised us to by cheap white sliced bread. Put all the bacon in and smothered it in ketchup

I bet the farmer who had contributed the pork and carefully reared it etc was expecting it to be treated a bit more seriously

It was son bad it was funny really.
I can imagine it winning one of those compilation shows - "100 worst cookery show moments" or something

cleo&gizmo

Answering your question about Waitrose.

I e-mailed the customer services e-mail
customer_service@waitrose.co.uk

I got a quick reply saying they had passed it to the marketting depy

I got a reply from Waitrose almost immediately saying theay have passed my comments to their marketting dept

I'll keep you posted

Off topic a bit, but a member of my family is a market researcher who has been working closely with the bigwigs at Wiatrose as they're trying to expand in the north of England. She said they are very sensitive about their image and are trying to push themselves as different to other supermarkets.

In particular they are trying to promote an image of selling fresh local produce. So hopefully they may be receptive if people contact them

I don't want to be vindictive about Market Kitchen / Tana etc by the way. I just want a decent food show to watch

Does anyone knows whether anyone publishes the viewing figures for programmes

Is there a website or something that lists them all

Also how are they calculated?

Cheers

A couple of people have e-mailed Terry Wogan for some reason

I would e-mail Waitrose (in fact I already have - and included a helpful link to this discussion board for them)

I think the whole changes at UKTVFood (like everything else in life) are money driven

Waitrose must be spending a lot of money sponsoring this thinking they are reaching a sophisticated and "foody" audience. I just let them know they should keep an eye on these boards over the coming months to get some free and direct customer feedback

Not posted a lot but encouraged to do so as Amanda posted so someone may be listening

I've watched GFL/GFbites/food uncut for years. I used to sky plus it every day
I was very open minded initially about Market Kitchen and didn't want to let my resentment about cancelling GFL influence my view of the show

BUT - It has really surprised and disappointed me. It seems very clearly a poor man's F Word. Instead of Gordon (who is a world famous chef) we get Tana (who is an average cook - probably worse than a lot of us on here)

Instead of the celebrity crowd in the F Word cafe we get a few embarressed looking people. And an extended advert for all things Ramsay. The long feature on Gordon Ramsay at claridges last night was just the end for me

Ultimately if like me you enjoy food and cooking and are a competent cook you don't want to learn how to make a fish pie or watercress soup in a step by step way

You can get this from a recipe book
You watch for entertainment and to see proper chefs cooking things you wouldn't normally see

GFL for me worked because it was live and therefore never had the sanitised, boring feel of Market Kitchen / Daily Cooks / Taste etc
Also it had really interesting chefs like Maria Elia and Nick Watts preparing genuinely individual and unusual dishes

Sorry about the long rant everyone but I think they've got rid of the only cookery programme that was different to the 1001 others around, and replaced it with a cheap and cliched show which I won't be watching

(And it's sponsored by a supermarket which makes it completely under the influence of the Ramsay and Waitrose empires)

Maria Elia

Delicious and intersting food and delicious all round really