What's the point??? (about rivercottage/ jamie at home)

[red]

I know - silly woman. I have been a grudging fan of Delias for some years.. saying yes, but she gives you the basic recipes etc..for someone who does not know how to cook a yorkshire pud, Delia will tell them.. and now this

and she pretends to be interested in poverty? hello? make a mousaka using tinned mince from M&S and frozen aubergine slices from A*da - how will this help those on a very tight budget. Frozen mash? seriously telling us thats cheaper than potatoes.
REally you could afford to spend the extra on a FR chicken if you were willing to prepare your own veg.
and that if she has people round for dinner she has to take a day off work? be serious. The rest of us manage.. and she is loaded.
she is trying to get on the backlash bandwagon. that is all the people who decide to go against the trend.

lets get this into perspective:
JO promotes growing your own veg. HFW promotes going as self sufficient as you can, and Delia-silly-woman- Smith says buy it in tins



ooo... I'm ranting... I'll go back to work now....

[Annpan]

Well... when I heard that Delia was doing a new book... I thought, hmm... that rings a bell...

On my cookery book shelf (purely for entertainment value) sits an old paperback book entitled;

'How to Cheat at Cooking' and it is by... Delia Smith... and it was published... in 1971

just for fun here is a random recipe

Quick Minestrone

1 packet of Minestrone soup (Knorr)
1 level teaspoon of concentrated tomato puree
1 large clove of Garlic, crushed
1 15 1/2 oz. can of Tomato soup (hienz)
Grated Parmesan cheese
1 can of Nocki (noodles in tomato sauce) (Crosse and Blackwell)
1 8oz can of butter beans, drained
1 level teaspoon of dried basil
Freshly milled black pepper


Sound pretty discusting to me...

could it have been Delia who inspired my mum to mix 1 tin tomato soup, 1 tin of mushroom soup... and pass it off a talgiatelli (sp?) sauce?!?!?!


To add... the book was a hand-me-down from my sister, she paid 60p for it at a jumble sale... the spine is not broken, it has obviously never been used...

I wonder if it would sell on Ebay

[justskint]

Judging by that recipe I think I can do better, on a bad day! She's a football supporter to, with a big gob.

[mrsflibble]

could it have been Delia who inspired my mum to mix 1 tin tomato soup, 1 tin of mushroom soup... and pass it off a talgiatelli (sp?) sauce?!?!?!

no, that could have been marguerite patten.
my comments on the recipe below are in italics.
her recipe for bolognese sauce is:

1 can/tube tomato puree
1 tablespoon of olive oil (aparently this is available from good pharmacies ??? )
seasoning
1/2-3/4 pt stock "use a stock cube" (pardon?!)
4-6 oz mince beef (that's 100-150g for those who don't measure in good ole English!!![/])
(150g mince for 4 people?!)
2 oz finely chopped mushrooms
1 oz butter
1/4 pt wine
1 small carrot cut into shred or fine dice
1 small onion cut into shred /fine dice
no herbs. no garlic. nd she serves it all wrong too.


fry mushroom, onion and carrot in a little butter and oil (ok so far).
stir in meat, simmer gently, add rest of ingredients she does not mention browning the meat so i am expecting grey meat à la my gran continue to cook until thickened and rich in flavour exsqueeze me?!
cook spaghetti according to packet instructions "throw at wall to see if it's done"
arrange spaghetti on warm plates and top with sauce NO NO NO!!!!! ADD PASTA TO THE SAUCE, STIR AND THEN SERVE! mamma mia!!!
serve with grated parmesan cheese. this is available from most good supermarkets and comes dried in a salt-style shaker TEARS OUT HAIR AND CRIES

from both her 500 recipes from around the world and another book i can't remember the name of. slight differences appear in the texts.

[red]

to be fair to MP - her recipes were popular when... 50s 60s? - my mum has her recipe book and its full of fairy cakes and things in jelly.
having said that my parents still cook a MP favourite.. they call it 'scalloped potatoes' it is in fact slices of potato cooked in concentrated mushroom soup...

[camillitech]

OMG are you saying that the Top Gear team didn't drive to the North Pole? Where were they then?

Nah the T055er was about 600miles short of it at magnetic north, A place incidently visited by lorries in the past of course he neglected to mention that in his quest to disprove climate change. But they are all guilty of it even the green ones. I don't believe anything until about 20 years after the event and I've read several books on the subject. I'm afraid the global warming issue can't wait 20 years so I'm being cautious, prudent and saving some money by trying to reduce my carbon footprint anyway.

Cheers, Paul

[Millymollymandy]

I knew they went to magnetic north pole - they said that - but I thought you meant they were filming in Iceland or somewhere completely different! So they really were where they said they were then.

[camillitech]

I knew they went to magnetic north pole - they said that - but I thought you meant they were filming in Iceland or somewhere completely different! So they really were where they said they were then.

Having been on the sea and about charts most my working life I always understood the north pole to be the north pole. The bit that's in the same place all the time the bit that Peary went to in 1909 and that bit that that dude swam in the other year to highlight global warming. Not some bit that is constantly moving and may well be in Russia soon and not Canada. My apologies to Jeremy as he obviuosly made this very clear and as usual I wasn't listing to him because of the pro petrol head drivel he usually spouts. Though I did catch his parting words very clearly and it was something to the effect of "We came to the NORTH POLE to see what effect man had had on it and as you can see it was absolutely ziltch"

Very responsible TV But of course I like most people see what I want to see and here what I want to hear

[Millymollymandy]

I have absolutely no idea what magnetic north pole is anyway - as far as I'm concerned the north pole is that bit at the top on the opposite side of the south pole ..... but they did at least cross vast frozen wastelands in the middle of nowhere - it wasn't in a studio! (You did get me worried!)

Come to think of it they showed the Satnav when they 'got there' and I was expecting it to show a lot of zeros but it didn't, and I tried to work out where this magnetic NP was. My old atlas didn't have that info.

[camillitech]

Hi MMM,

Magnetic north is where a compass points and it alters constantly around 1/2 a degree of longitude eastwards every year at the mo (I think) and the position can change by up to 40km in a year, That's why you won't find it in an atlas or on a map as it's constantly changing with the fluctuations in the earths magnetic field. I read recently that it was around 600miles away from the north pole at the mo and could soon be in Russia.

Cheers, Paul

[Millymollymandy]

Thanks Paul. One more question - if you were acually trying to get to the real north pole using old fashioned equipment (not satnav), how would you find your way there then as you obviously couldn't use a compass!

[mrsflibble]

no idea.

celestial navigation perhaps? sextant? it's be pretty pointless using solar navigation seeing as it's either light or dark for 6 months at a time........

[WiseBird]

getting back to HFW, we live only a couple of miles away from River Cottage and a few months ago hubby had to deliver a parcel there - so I went along to 'help'!. Obviously HFW moved out ages ago and the cottage is now rented by someone else so we got to have a good nose around the garden...and it is pretty small I can tell you...and steep down to the river.

But I do have quite a funny story regarding the TV crew and River Cottage. At the time of the 1st series we were having an extension built onto our house and our local one-man band builder used a farmer with his tractor and trailer from Netherbury (where River Cottage is situated) to help him out.

Now, this farmer has land directly next door to River Cottage and he was approached by the TV people to see if he would allow them to put polytunnels on his land for Hugh to grow things in.

Straight away the farmer was offered £900 if he would say yes...Dick (the farmer) thought this was a huge amount of money for such a small request...all he said was "£900" and (as he says) it must have been the way he said it... because the next thing he knew they said "OK £1200...but thats the best we can do"...an extra £300 just like that!

So...if you're ever offered money in a similar situation...you know what to do...just pause and see what happens

[Millymollymandy]

Ha ha ha, that's brilliant!

[chrishopper33]

perhaps these were made as it is the in fashion at the moment.
just an idea