The Guardian
Despite our love for cookery, we amateurs, it seems, are still committing cardinal culinary sins. Andrew Shanahan asks some top chefs what makes them wince
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Showing posts with label Chefs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chefs. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Alice Waters: Skye Gyngell cooks for her food hero
For as long as she can remember, Skye Gyngell's food hero has been Alice Waters, the visionary restaurateur behind Chez Panisse, in California. One recent, nerve-wracking, Sunday she not only got to meet her, but to cook for her.
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Sunday, March 04, 2007
TV chefs inspire a new class of schoolboy cooks...
Scotland on Sunday
By EVA LANGLANDS AND MURDO MACLEOD
THERE was a time that schoolboys would do almost anything to escape "girly" cooking lessons. But, inspired by celebrity chefs and the rise of foodie culture, there has been a massive increase in boys taking the subject in Scottish classrooms.
New figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) reveal a rise of almost 60% in three years in the number of boys taking the vocational courses designed to propel them towards professional kitchens.
Old-fashioned home economics - which combined traditional "housewife" skills of cooking and needlework - was revamped in 1999. That, and the rise of role models such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, has given the subject a remarkable boost.
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By EVA LANGLANDS AND MURDO MACLEOD
THERE was a time that schoolboys would do almost anything to escape "girly" cooking lessons. But, inspired by celebrity chefs and the rise of foodie culture, there has been a massive increase in boys taking the subject in Scottish classrooms.
New figures from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) reveal a rise of almost 60% in three years in the number of boys taking the vocational courses designed to propel them towards professional kitchens.
Old-fashioned home economics - which combined traditional "housewife" skills of cooking and needlework - was revamped in 1999. That, and the rise of role models such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, has given the subject a remarkable boost.
Read more...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Will Ramsay have to eat his f-words?
The Scotsman
By Emma Cowing
'AH!" SAYS the impeccably turned-out French maitre d', taking our coats. "You are the people who asked to see the chef's table, yes?" We confirm that we are. "That is no problem," he says, threading his way through the faux snakeskin chairs to our table as numerous, equally impeccable-looking French waiting staff hover nearby. "You will go after the meal, yes?"
Welcome to Abstract Edinburgh, the newest fine-dining restaurant to open its doors in the capital. You will have heard of Abstract. You will probably have heard of the chef's table, too. Most likely you will have heard of them in conjunction with the name Gordon Ramsay, as it was as a result of two visits by the fearsome chef to Abstract's first restaurant in Inverness, for his Channel 4 show Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, that both entered the media spotlight.
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By Emma Cowing
'AH!" SAYS the impeccably turned-out French maitre d', taking our coats. "You are the people who asked to see the chef's table, yes?" We confirm that we are. "That is no problem," he says, threading his way through the faux snakeskin chairs to our table as numerous, equally impeccable-looking French waiting staff hover nearby. "You will go after the meal, yes?"
Welcome to Abstract Edinburgh, the newest fine-dining restaurant to open its doors in the capital. You will have heard of Abstract. You will probably have heard of the chef's table, too. Most likely you will have heard of them in conjunction with the name Gordon Ramsay, as it was as a result of two visits by the fearsome chef to Abstract's first restaurant in Inverness, for his Channel 4 show Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, that both entered the media spotlight.
Read more...
TV chef leads fight against supermarkets
The Independent
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the television chef and champion of small producers, is fronting a new offensive against the supermarkets which he portrays as a "bullying" force destroying British food.
The Channel 4 presenter will denounce the supermarkets at a public meeting in Westminster tonight and demand new powers to limit their growth.
Four campaign groups are behind the event, Supersized Supermarkets: Friends of the Earth, War on Want, ActionAid and the anti-Tesco website Tescopoly. They are asking the public to write to their MPs and the Competition Commissioner to make five demands, ranging from a new consumer watchdog to stronger labour rights.
The Commissioner is investigating whether the supermarket groups, which take 72 per cent of grocery spending in the UK, are abusing their dominant position.
Campaigners argue that stores harm the environment, diminish local communities and bully suppliers over prices and councils over planning permission.
Read more...
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the television chef and champion of small producers, is fronting a new offensive against the supermarkets which he portrays as a "bullying" force destroying British food.
The Channel 4 presenter will denounce the supermarkets at a public meeting in Westminster tonight and demand new powers to limit their growth.
Four campaign groups are behind the event, Supersized Supermarkets: Friends of the Earth, War on Want, ActionAid and the anti-Tesco website Tescopoly. They are asking the public to write to their MPs and the Competition Commissioner to make five demands, ranging from a new consumer watchdog to stronger labour rights.
The Commissioner is investigating whether the supermarket groups, which take 72 per cent of grocery spending in the UK, are abusing their dominant position.
Campaigners argue that stores harm the environment, diminish local communities and bully suppliers over prices and councils over planning permission.
Read more...
Monday, February 26, 2007
Anton Mosimann: Master chef turns 60
The Independent
The napkins have been pressed; the cutlery polished. In a ballroom off Park Lane, staff are dusting fine bone china, and performing other luxury hotel alternatives to putting up the bunting. The Dorchester is preparing to honour its greatest living son.
Anton Mosimann, OBE, boasts a place in history as the man who created the modern hotel kitchen. Arguably, the world's first celebrity chef, he also invented a school of cooking that is now standard restaurant fare, and became one of the first top restaurateurs to share his secrets with the masses via television.
Today, he's 60, and some of the world's top foodies have come to London to celebrate with an old-fashioned banquet. Three hundred guests will tuck into an eight-course meal, drink double magnums of vintage plonk, and smoke the finest Havana cigars.
You may not have eaten his food, stepped into his discreet Belgravian club, or seen his face adorning a new range of kitchenware. But without Mosimann we would not be living in the era of Jamie, Heston and Gordon.
Read more...
The napkins have been pressed; the cutlery polished. In a ballroom off Park Lane, staff are dusting fine bone china, and performing other luxury hotel alternatives to putting up the bunting. The Dorchester is preparing to honour its greatest living son.
Anton Mosimann, OBE, boasts a place in history as the man who created the modern hotel kitchen. Arguably, the world's first celebrity chef, he also invented a school of cooking that is now standard restaurant fare, and became one of the first top restaurateurs to share his secrets with the masses via television.
Today, he's 60, and some of the world's top foodies have come to London to celebrate with an old-fashioned banquet. Three hundred guests will tuck into an eight-course meal, drink double magnums of vintage plonk, and smoke the finest Havana cigars.
You may not have eaten his food, stepped into his discreet Belgravian club, or seen his face adorning a new range of kitchenware. But without Mosimann we would not be living in the era of Jamie, Heston and Gordon.
Read more...
Thursday, February 22, 2007
A woman's place: France rocked by Michelin's latest three-star chef
The Guardian
By Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
It has been lampooned as a stultifying snapshot of France's most pretentious places to eat - a testosterone-charged arena of stress-ridden alpha males catering to conservative businessmen on expense accounts. But the French Michelin guide, the influential "little red book" of gastronomy, appeared to take a step into the modern age yesterday by awarding its top three-star accolade to the first female chef in more than 50 years.
Anne-Sophie Pic, 37 - a petite, softly spoken and revered chef who has headed the kitchen at La Maison Pic in the south-eastern French town of Valence for more than a decade - is only the fourth woman to win the top award. A specialist in fish, her signature dishes include sea bass caught in coastal waters and steamed over wakame kelp, served with gillardeau oyster bonbons, cucumber chutney and vodka and lemon butter sauce. But although she came late to haute cuisine, the chef, who prefers to mix textures and flavours rather than radically alter ingredients, comes from a gastronomic dynasty. Both her grandfather, famous for his crayfish gratin, and father had three stars in their time.
Read more...
By Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
It has been lampooned as a stultifying snapshot of France's most pretentious places to eat - a testosterone-charged arena of stress-ridden alpha males catering to conservative businessmen on expense accounts. But the French Michelin guide, the influential "little red book" of gastronomy, appeared to take a step into the modern age yesterday by awarding its top three-star accolade to the first female chef in more than 50 years.
Anne-Sophie Pic, 37 - a petite, softly spoken and revered chef who has headed the kitchen at La Maison Pic in the south-eastern French town of Valence for more than a decade - is only the fourth woman to win the top award. A specialist in fish, her signature dishes include sea bass caught in coastal waters and steamed over wakame kelp, served with gillardeau oyster bonbons, cucumber chutney and vodka and lemon butter sauce. But although she came late to haute cuisine, the chef, who prefers to mix textures and flavours rather than radically alter ingredients, comes from a gastronomic dynasty. Both her grandfather, famous for his crayfish gratin, and father had three stars in their time.
Read more...
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Hell's Kitchen's Marco Pierre White criticises fellow chefs
The Times
Marco Pierre White was unveiled as the new star of TV show Hell's Kitchen today - and immediately laid into fellow chef Jamie Oliver.
White dismissed Oliver's school dinners campaign as a "cynical" publicity stunt which has failed to improve children's food.
He also stoked up his simmering feud with Gordon Ramsay, saying: "He doesn't enrich my life in any way."
And he slammed celebrity chefs who put their names to expensive restaurants but never cook there.
White will put 10 celebrities through their paces in the new series of ITV1 reality show Hell's Kitchen, to be broadcast later in the year.
Read more...
Marco Pierre White was unveiled as the new star of TV show Hell's Kitchen today - and immediately laid into fellow chef Jamie Oliver.
White dismissed Oliver's school dinners campaign as a "cynical" publicity stunt which has failed to improve children's food.
He also stoked up his simmering feud with Gordon Ramsay, saying: "He doesn't enrich my life in any way."
And he slammed celebrity chefs who put their names to expensive restaurants but never cook there.
White will put 10 celebrities through their paces in the new series of ITV1 reality show Hell's Kitchen, to be broadcast later in the year.
Read more...
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