Streets Blue Ribbon commercial

Everyone seen this ad?

The one with the slo-mo strawberry toppling down an icecream mountain? And the two singers, the male one singing relatively normally ("I had a dream, about Streets Blue Ribbon icecream..."), but the OTHER ONE??!?!? The female singer who is in some sort of orgasmic rapture over the buttermilk??!?!

"More.... more... MORE, MORE BUTTERMILK!"

What the hell? Who let this onto primetime?

"More... more... MORE! MORE BUTTERMILK!"

Masterfoods commercial

Julie from MasterChef is starring in a couple of TV ads for Fountain Sauces and Masterfoods Australia. Is it just me, or are they both deeply tragic and embarrassing to watch? In the one where she tells her boys to take the bins out, one of her sons gives her this look. You know he's thinking, "OMG Mum. This is so lame. You have totally sold out and gone mad with power. I'm just doing this because the bribery money I'm getting will pay for a new PS and Grand Theft Auto 4".
And in the other ad, where she pretends to have a deep and meaningful convo with herself in the pantry, assigning various Masterfoods sauces to various future meals while pretending to be a wholesome family mum who mysteriously wears ridiculously raccoony black eye makeup while whipping up saucy chicken for lunch with Margaret Fulton. And again to you, Margaret, WTF? Haven't you got enough dough stashed away from your life of fabulous cuisine contributions? Surely you don't NEED whatever Masterfoods is throwing at you to smile at Julie Goodwin and pretend to take a bite of a pre-prepared packet sauce chicken. As if. You probably spat it into your napkin as soon as the shot was over. You wouldn't be caught dead with a packet.
Shame!

My Kitchen Rules casting application

Here's the site: apply online for quick and easy kitchen stardom!
Anyone going to try out?

KFC Cayan Grill

What the hell is that?
What the hell is that word?

Is it cayenne?
Is it caiman?

No, it's cayan.

I have NEVER seen that word before. This is not a good sign, KFC. Google has no idea what it means, either. All the official KFC website tells us is that the Cayan Grill has herbs and spices on it, and it's grilled. As in, not fried. As in, trying to simultaneously alienate and win over the respective 50%s of KFC's market share.

Not a major KFC fan, unfortunately, except for the occasional stress-induced snack pack of popcorn chicken. However, this new menu item confuses me deeply and I wish to know whether or not it is a NEW FLAVOUR and if so WHAT FLAVOUR IS IT. And please stop inventing words that have no meaning, just random onomatopoeic associations with New Orleans.

WILL THE MADNESS EVER END?

Campbell's Fully Loaded Can

He's hungry for danger
He can take the heat
Fully loaded man's got balls of meat
Over the edge
Flying through the sky
Fully loaded man, he could probably die
Time to slam a fully loaded can
A fully crammed dinner feast
For a meat, veg and pasta fan
Fully loaded can!



Those are the lyrics, apart from line seven which I can't really work out. Let me know if you can tell what he's saying! *update* sorted now- thanks!
How awesome is this ad? Seems like this is the kind of unashamed testosterone festival that we've been missing on Aussie TV recently. Compare the Fully Loaded Man with the Perfect Italiano metrosexual:



Looks like there's a fine line between 'metrosexually appealing' and 'pansy'. Personally, I feel the Perfect Italiano man would grow dull after a while. He can cook, he understands interior design, he is well-groomed and owns a functional set of emotions, but where's the excitement? Where's the PASSION? WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Masterchef Australia

Have you seen that Masterchef Australia ad where the contestants chop and throw and jump and set fire to things in slow motion? Let's watch it now.


That dude cracking the egg is pretty cute. Shame about the hairdo. He needs a nice little side clip. Anyway, from this ad, it seems that the producers are attempting to create a picture in the viewers' minds as to what they can expect from Masterchef: INTENSE, SEXY and BRUTAL. Intense I can go. Sexy is in the eye of the beholder, fortunately, and if my egg-cracking friend there gets a fringe trim and decides to indulge in some apron-only poses for the camera, I could be there. Brutal: I doubt it. After Ramsay none of us will ever be the same again. But we'll see: that Animal Farm-guy raising his eyes at the end looks like he might have a few expletives up his sleeve. Hopefully.

Who doesn't like chicken?

Seen those Ingham chicken ads? Hilarious. Surely, some loony will very soon write to the paper complaining about prejudice and anti-vegetarianism and demand boycotting this and banning that. Until they do, and the ads get pulled, we can enjoy them any time of day via teh interwebs.

The Nigella effect

From the UK's Daily Mail.

The Nigella effect strips supermarkets bare of semolina for perfect Christmas spuds

For generations who were subjected to sticky milk puddings at school, semolina is the stuff of nightmares.
But thanks to Nigella Lawson, the ground wheat product has been transformed into a 21st century must-have.
Supermarket shelves were stripped bare by fans desperate to follow her instructions for making 'perfect roast potatoes' as part of Christmas dinner.
The TV cook and self- styled Domestic Goddess suggests sprinkling semolina on parboiled potatoes as an alternative to flour before roasting them in goose fat.
She first used the idea in her Christmas Kitchen series two years ago. It was repeated this month with three extra programmes to coincide with the release of her book Nigella Christmas, which also features the recipe.
A spokesman for Asda said its sales of semolina had already doubled because of Nigella and there was a further increase of 65 per cent in the run-up to Christmas.
'The only explanation is that people are using it for Nigella's roast potatoes. Luckily we did not sell out anywhere.'
Sainsbury's said its sales of semolina had increased by 35 per cent in the last year. 'Obviously Nigella is a very influential person. There was a similar big increase in demand a couple of years ago when she recommended using goose fat.'
The best-known figure for sparking huge sales increases in products and types of food is Delia Smith The term 'Delia effect' to describe a rush on any item she recommended entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2001.
Delia's recipes have previously led to a huge increase in sales of cranberries, limes, salted capers and liquid glucose. When she recommended a ten-inch metal pan as 'a little gem' for omelette making, it rescued the struggling firm, which had been selling only 200 of the pans a year.
Lune Metal Products of Lancashire had to take on extra staff to make 90,000 new pans in just four months.
Sales of asparagus shot up after being featured in Jamie Oliver's TV adverts, while Gordon Ramsay's cooking of tripe boosted sales by 400 per cent.

Calling all foodies: very interesting

Got an email today.

Hi there Pinky

I am a casting director for the TV industry and I run a company called “A Cast of Thousands”. We have just been briefed on a dream show for a foodie to cast, Masterchef. Below is some information about the show. I am trying to reach out to Australia’s foodie community to get the word out to find the best amateur cooks in the country. I am hoping that you may know of friends who may be interested in the opportunity – I know you’re not updating your blog anymore.

******************

The search is on to find Australia’s first true MasterChef. Network Ten wants every kitchen wannabe from amateur chefs to budding foodies to toss their chef’s hat in the ring…each hoping to become…Australia’s next super Chef.
A real life drama will play out as the contestant’s kitchen courage is put to the ultimate test. From the lows of failure to the highs of success, our cast of characters will be catapulted from starters to mains then desserts and back again.
IN 2009 WE ARE ABOUT TO SEE WHO CAN TAKE THE HEAT…AND WHO HAD BETTER GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!

To apply, go to www.masterchef.com.au

What do you mean, I'm not updating my blog anymore?!?! Isn't a two-day gap acceptable these days? One needs blog downtime, you know!
Sheesh. People these days.

Oh well, who's going to enter? Could be veeeeery interesting.

Mama Cherri's and Gordon Ramsay

So we saw last night on Kitchen Nightmares an old 2005 episode where Gords visits Mama Cherri's Soul Food Big House in Brighton, fixes it up for the second time, but then suspects that they won't be able to keep it together once he's gone.

And you were right, Ramsay. Turns out the joint has now gone into administration and Mama Cherri's daughter ("Baby Cherri" ...tragic) is now trying to resurrect something from the ashes.

I couldn't believe on the show how much Mama would NOT SHUT UP. Even when Gordon was trying to say something really quite important, like imparting business advice, she was just yap yap yap the whole time. And that USA flag headscarf got a bit old, frankly.

Some VERY mixed reviews from the public who've eaten there, here and here.

Seems that the Gordon thing was a mixed blessing: he had good things to say about the down-home Southern-fried cooking at first, but then they got lazy and he had to do his flamethrower routine. Pity that Mama and Brian the chef could never work out who was driving the bus- it sounds like a really fun and interesting concept that could have become a local and tourist landmark. You can always buy the cookbook (above).

American Idol 2008

Will it be little geeky David, or hard pseudo-rocker David? Are the pre-teens of America going for the David Cassidy look this year, or are they wanting a little more rough trade?
Oddly enough, I always referred to David Cook as "Toadface" (just as I referred to Australian Idol's Season 3 contestant Emily Williams as "Squidhead") because I couldn't remember his name and also because he looked a bit like a toad, before the makeover. Now, it's the other David who is toadlike in appearance: squat, smarmy, looks like he's either about to burst into tears or snap out his tongue and snaffle a tasty bug. The original Toadface has become rather appealing. How the worm turns.

Hell's Kitchen

Starts tonight on Channel 9. I'll be there: rugged up on the couch, lights dimmed, coffee clenched in my paws, inane grin on face. Give 'em hell, Ramsay.

Some spoilers here.

** update

Good God, it's a repeat! It's the same one that was on cable last year!! With that dorky guy called Dewberry in it!! And Gordon accidentally calls him Blueberry!

I'm gutted. What a gyp. Shame on you, Channel 9.

More Ramsay, more swearing

Check out this article from the NY Times about Top Chef, Ramsay, and other potty-mouthed chefs.

Too Much Heat in the TV Kitchen?
It may be that cursing is now seen as part of a chef’s public persona, not just accepted but expected.
By PETE WELLS
Published: April 16, 2008
FOR many chefs, a simple “bon appétit” no longer says it all.

The chef Gordon Ramsay is known for his heated language.
Last week’s episode of “Top Chef” ended in a volley of profanity, as half the contestants cursed the other half.
The first line of an article about the chef David Chang in The New Yorker last month contained a profane quotation from Mr. Chang. So did the last line. So did many of the lines in between.
But even Mr. Chang at his most vivid comes across as an instructor at vacation Bible school compared with Gordon Ramsay. On his shows “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Kitchen Nightmares,” Mr. Ramsay leaps outside the bounds of broadcasting rules so often that the Web site Television Without Pity begins its summaries of each episode with something it calls (give or take a word here or there) Gordon Ramsay’s Bleep-O-Meter.

There is, admittedly, a dog-bites-man quality to the news that chefs curse.
“For as long as I’ve been around restaurant kitchens they have been testosterone-fueled places where guys almost revel in their profanity,” said Ruth Reichl, the editor in chief of Gourmet.
But these chefs and others are cursing in front of rolling cameras and reporters’ notebooks. It’s as if the dog called in the media before tearing off after the postman.
“You read Rolling Stone and you don’t see rock stars curse like this,” said the chef Tom Colicchio, the lead judge of “Top Chef.” “And it’s recent, too. It’s something you’ve seen just in the past year.”

Mr. Colicchio blames a loosening of standards in the whole of American culture.
According to Ms. Reichl, chefs have been talking to reporters this way for years, but until recently they could expect an editor to reach for the scissors before publication.
Others assert that cursing is now seen as part of a chef’s public persona, not just accepted but expected.

“I’m making a living at it,” said Anthony Bourdain, who parsed the fine points of the stoveside lexicon in his book “Kitchen Confidential.”
“I do a lot of speaking engagements and sometimes I feel like I’m being paid to curse in front of people who haven’t heard it in a while,” he said. “I’ve been pushing it and pushing it and have unloaded like a marine in front of a vast roomful of blue-haired ladies, and they seem to get it.”
In the beginning, a chef sweated away in a kitchen filled with fire, smoke and danger. A certain amount of salty language fit the general milieu. In this sweltering inferno, the chef forged a meal for the rest of us to eat. And it was good. So good that we asked the chef to appear before us to bask in our delighted applause.

But as a party trick, reproducing kitchen argot outside the kitchen does not enchant all audiences equally.
As she read the David Chang profile, Barbara Fairchild, the editor in chief of Bon Appétit, said that she “kind of sat there with my mouth open half the time. I think I was surprised by the relentlessness of it.”

L. Timothy Ryan, the president of the Culinary Institute of America, based in Hyde Park, N.Y., argues that the foul language is bad, in the end, for the profession. He said he reminded the school’s new graduates in his speech at commencement on Friday that just a few decades ago, chefs were not held in esteem. When he sees “shows where the chef is screaming and yelling and swearing and cursing,” he said, “to me, that takes us back.”

Dr. Ryan has not been watching this season of “Top Chef,” set in Chicago, which features a number of his school’s graduates indulging in all of the expected profanity. The bleeping began before the credits sequence in the first episode. After that it seemed to settle into a relaxed clip of a couple of dozen bleeps an hour, until last week. In the final minutes, several long-nursed grudges took flight at once. The resulting bleeps ran together like a test of the old Emergency Broadcast System.
Writing on his blog on the Bravo site the day the episode ran, Mr. Colicchio apologized for “the gutter language,” which he deemed “excessive.”

Mr. Colicchio said in an interview that commenters on his blog had criticized this season’s profanity from “day one" and that Bravo, which broadcasts “Top Chef,” had received complaints as well. He said he often heard from children and teenagers who said the show had inspired them to cook or to try new foods, and he was concerned that their parents might stop them from watching it because of the profanity.

He also suggested that one cause of the complaints might be “the way they’re bleeping.” Bravo’s censors leave much of the offending syllables intact. Words are not exactly bleeped out; they’re bleeped at. Instead of a fig leaf, the network holds up a sprig of parsley.
Andy Cohen, the senior vice president for programming and production of Bravo, said that the contestants in “Top Chef: Chicago” this season were notably more profane than those in earlier years.

“It’s struck us from the first cut we got of the first episode,” he said. “At the network all we can do is bleep like crazy and, you know, maintain our standards while maintaining the integrity of what’s going on in the kitchen. I mean look, it’s who these people are, and we try to show these people as they are.”
To find out how these people are, a reporter called one of them, Andrew D’Ambrosi, at the restaurant where he works as a junior sous-chef, Le Cirque.
The cook who answered the kitchen phone sang out, “Andrew, there’s a [expletive] guy from The Times calling.”

Taking the phone, Mr. D’Ambrosi said that while some of his friends and relatives were surprised by his vocabulary, “Top Chef” accurately reflected his on-the-job demeanor.
“When you’re in the heat of things, you need a little more emphasis in the words you say to a cook,” he explained. “If you say give me that lasagna, it’s not the same as” — and here he demonstrated a way of phrasing the request more emphatically.
Another contestant, Spike Mendelsohn, said that his language on the show had been a bit of a shock to his in-laws, a Southern family he described as “prim and proper,” and to himself as well.
“I was actually surprised myself when I watched it,” he said. “I didn’t want to be so foulmouthed.”
Does he wish he’d chosen other words? “Not at all, that’s who I am,” he said.
The current crop of would-be Top Chefs may reflect their generation, who grew up in an era of unfiltered media. Or they may simply reflect their age.
“I have sworn, yes, in the early days, going back 20 years,” said Marco Pierre White, the English chef once renowned for his scorched-earth rages. But then he tidied up his vocabulary. “It was just growing up.”

Last year, Mr. White took over the British version of “Hell’s Kitchen,” which had been a vehicle for Gordon Ramsay’s coloratura displays of anger. Mr. White immediately cleaned house.
“I encouraged everyone to work hard, and in the three weeks I did it I never swore once,” he said. “I never belittled anybody once. I got people to want to do their job.” (A publicist for Mr. Ramsay said that he was not available for comment because he was filming a television show in London.)

People who have worked with the chef Thomas Keller say that he rarely, if ever, curses in the kitchen, although in his youth he was known for his temper.
“When you talk to older guys, they’ll all say they were big yellers but they’ve toned it down now,” said David Chang. He said that he would like to do the same, in part because he was worried that his tantrums were damaging his heart.
“It’s not like I want to do it, I just want to get my point across and unfortunately I’m not that eloquent or articulate,” he said. “If I could find a better way — and I’m trying — to communicate, I will change in a heartbeat.”
Not so fast, Anthony Bourdain might say. Mr. Bourdain thinks that public profanity could be the ultimate sign that chefs have arrived.

“It indicates a real move from servant to professional status,” he said. “Better than professional. Who gets away with talking like that to their customers?”

Ramsay

How fabulously un-PC is Gordon Ramsay? He has become the highlight of my TV week. The verbal abuse, the mouth more filthy than a cockroach-infested mediaeval latrine, the incompetent and pathetic wannabe chefs who willingly parade themselves before him to be whipped and ridiculed, his terrible and destructive methods he uses to get results from people, the endless tirade of awful food.
It's just so bad, it's good. There was a thing in the paper on the weekend about a Federal inquiry into swearing on television, all because some senator stumbled upon the 9.30 version of Ramsay. Apparently he uses the f word 50 times an episode, on average.
He is an abomination of manners, yet so refreshing. When you spend all day behaving yourself and trying to present a reasonably polite face to the world, it's like a long cold Long Island iced tea to snuggle youself on the couch for an unashamedly foul-mouthed, evil hour of Ramsay. Thank God it's Tuesday!

American Idol 2008: the first round of rejects

So it looks like Garrett is among the first four to be punted off the show. Boo hoo.

Is it just me, or did this guy look like the blond baby-faced spawn of Joey from New Kids on the Block and Slash from Guns n' Roses?

Sugar-coated fennel seeds

I have seen these around town, especially in Indian and Middle-Eastern food stores, but wasn't quite sure what they were and what to do with them. Then good old Food Safari came to the rescue. Maeve was snacking on a bowl of them during one of the episodes (and I wish I could remember which one, because the SBS website doesn't help.) Iknow it's generally an Indian thing though. The deal is that they freshen the breath after a meal, particularly a spicy flavour-filled one, and help with digestion. If you are into herbs, fennel also does about a million other awesome healthy things for your body, including relieve bloating, gas, period pain and other assorted womanly issues.

So I got me a packet: about a buck fifty for a big packet at the Indian grocer, and ate a couple after dinner. And they ARE tasty and I DO feel well-digested. And I like having a new thing in the kitchen to think about, especially something that makes me feel connected to another country's food heritage. If only I looked good in a sari.

Beef and orange daube

This is a direct result of me watching that Elizabeth David program on the ABC the other night. I really enjoyed it: the actress playing her was very talented and I got a lot out of the show. Admittedly, the biography I have of her is quite dry and boring, so I skipped a fair bit of it. Watching the program helped to fill in some of the gaps I have about her life. She certainly was a live spark: the men, the adultery (which would have been a bigger deal then, I guess), the struggle for meaning, the resistance from people when she tried to introduce Mediterranean / Continental flavours into British cooking. I really liked the fact that she cooked and worked and wrote and entertained all on the same battered old table, and that her dining room / kitchen / workroom was decidedly unglamorous: not that big, utilitarian, worn. I think I want to grow up to be her.
But there was a scene in the program where she is languishing in some cold English field, dreaming about "beef scented with orange peel". That was it for me. The end, questions over, casserole time. To be more specific, daube time.

A daube is supposed to be meat cooked with wine, over a long slow heat, together with other suitable vegetables and so on, to produce a rich stew on the thick side, with the beef falling apart and meltingly tender. I didn't really do that, probably because I made the daube and THEN went looking for her book, French Provincial Cooking (read it for free via Google Books). This book has been a great teacher. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. If I had read the recipe first, things might have been different, but I am still very pleased with the result.

My daube turned out to be a rich meaty sauce, coating chunks of tender beef and vegetables. I served it with steamed potatoes, broccoli and zucchini in a bowl, with the persillade on top. In retrospect I should have omitted the persillade, but Mrs Daid did recommend it. I though it detracted from the soft flavours of the meat and gravy.

The daube would be great with pasta, or even on thick toast.

Escoffier, the great French chef, was all about "depouiller, depouiller, depouiller". Skim, skim, skim. Skimming a broth, soup or stock makes it clear and lovely. I remembered Escoffier just in time, and and all my depouillering went to good use, for the daube was indeed clear, murk-free and enchanting.


Pinky's beef and orange daube

• About a kilo of beef bones (I bought mine cheap from the supermarket: they were called "beef soup bones".) Make sure you get bones that have been cut right through so you can see the marrow.



• Some suitable beef pieces. If the soup bones are very meaty, perhaps that would be enough. I bought "gravy beef", which looked to be chuck or stewing steak in pieces. It worked well.



• 1 cup red wine



• 1-2 onions, peeled and halved



• 3 celery sticks, roughly chopped



• 2 carrots, sliced



• Peel slices from half an orange



• Tomato passata



• salt



• olive oil

For the persillade:

• Flat-leaf parsley




• Orange zest (use the other half of the orange from above)




• Half a clove of garlic, grated

Trim the steak into large cubes. Trim off any fat, sinew, gristle, anything white. This will help the meat to relax and become awesome. In a giant saucepan or stock pot, splash in some oil. Add the meat and bones, and cook on medium heat for a few minutes until browned all over. Pour in the wine and cook off the alcohol for a minute or so. Add the vegetables, the peel, a slug of passata, and water to cover the lot. Use more water rather than less. My stockpot was almost full. Add a little bit of salt, just a pinch. Bring to the boil. Stand there and skim it as it boils: you want to get rid of any grey-brown-green scungey scum or foam. These are the impurities that will cloud your dish. Bubbles are OK. Red-brown foam is OK too. Reduce heat to a low simmer, move it to your smallest burner, and simmer for several hours. Mine went for 4-5 hours. Skim it periodically: you could even bring it back to the boil once or twice to encourage the scum to surface and then skim it away.

After the long slow simmering, you should have a deep, rich-coloured broth, crumbly tender meat and mushy vegetables. Let it cool for a while (or don't bother). Get a big big bowl, sit a colander inside and line the colander with a clean tea towel. Strain the broth through this. You want the clear juice going into the bowl below. Discard the bones: take the meat off them first if you like. Rinse the stockpot and pour the strained broth back into it. Add the meat cubes and the carrots, if they look OK. Taste for seasoning: adjust as you will. Put the pot of broth and meat back on the stove. It should be about a quarter or a fifth of the original volume. Continue reducing gently, thicken with a little flour towards the end. Total cooking time for me was about 6 hours.

The persillade is a mixture that you sprinkle over the finished daube. If using a persillade, finely chop the parsley and combine with the zest and grated garlic. Serve as you like. The flavour of the orange peel will be beautiful and haunting. Vive la Provence!

Food Safari on SBS

Having a great time with this show. And I am totally going to win that trip to Vietnam.
It hasn't quite yet pushed Iron Chef out of my top SBS viewing position, but it's close. The only thing that bugs me is Maeve O'Meara: she's very nice and I'm sure she's a lovely person and I'm sure it's not deliberate, but seems like whenever she tries a dish, there's a pause, and then her eyes go wide and there's a wild nodding of the head, and she says "Mmm!! That IS good!" as if she was expecting the dish to be really gross, and then the person cooking the dish says thanks Maeve, and she says "No really!! That is lovely!!"
Patronising.
And she also has an annoying habit of stating the obvious. Like if the cook adds lemon juice, she'll say "And that's to add a bit more acidity??" Like she has to tell us that adding salt makes it saltier. Whatever.
But I think what I really like about the show is that it seems really authentic: that the recipes are real in-use recipes that real people who know what they are talking about cook at home. Seems like getting a Pakistani recipe off the website, one that came from a Pakistani home cook, would be more legitimate than a bastardised recipe published in the latest Women's Weekly cookbook, or some recipe database or something. I like that. Could be that the show just makes it seem like recipes aren't from a test kitchen, but I still believe that the dishes are proper living pathways to new, unsanitised, culinary worlds. And that's how we want it, right?