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The F Word!


Pweaver1984

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The first time I saw MPW on tv he was tasting a sauce with a long trail of saliva running from his mouth into the pan. The health inspectors generally aren't around during service, I find.

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Uh, I know who Marco Pierre White is. But we don't devote an acronym to him.

MPW is an acronym used in many of his restaurants too, it's part of his branding.

I have limited experience in US kitchens, i worked for just one week in New York at 4 diiferent establishments. I found very few differences between them and British kitchens, same lapses of ideal food handling practises, same desire to get around hygiene legislation when the chef 'knows better' and the same dirty spoons in your dinner.

Edited by Matthew Tomkinson (log)

The quest for perfection will lead you to role models that will last you for life (Nico Ladenis)

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  • 1 month later...

Well… the first programme in the second series of Gordan Ramsay’s “F Word” went out last night. I think the time slot may have changed, as it now straddles the watershed (8.30pm – 9.30pm), and there seems to be more swearing and yelling this time round. So plenty of bleeps before 9pm, and “F” not standing for food in the second half. It’s a shame, because I had to pack my 6 year old off to bed and she missed the Hugh FW and GR kids’ segments, which she loved the last time round.

This time, GR doesn’t have chefs in the kitchen, but a handful of amateur cooks. The butchers got the knife last night. I missed the beginning of the show, so I have no idea what “Lawson” did to incur the wrath of GR, but he seemed to be getting a disproportionate amount of abuse. Now, I think it’s one thing for GR to yell at chefs, because whether it’s right or not, it’s his trademark, and they’re in the business and they have decided that it's worth it. But yelling at “civilians” who have never cooked in a professional kitchen before, and are not trying out for a GR trainee position strikes me as completely out of line. The guest diners are asked whether they would be prepared to pay for each dish they’re served, there’s a tally at the end, so obviously the idea is to have a league table to see which “amateur group” manages to cook the most money making dishes. Very Top Gear.

In stark contrast, GR Mr Niceguy trotted over to junk food eating lads in Clapham in the “civilian without a palate” segment; he got them cleaning the kitchen, making a curry paste, they all sat down to dinner and lived happily ever after. He really wants to get people back in the kitchen, he says… well, except for the butchers, who obviously know nothing about food..

The “I can cook better than GR” slot still stands. It was a lasagne challenge last night, GR lost again, and it’s much more tightly edited than last time, so we don’t have to sit through the sterility of a taste test. The Hugh FW segment was really interesting, but I wish it had been longer. The focus this series is on pork, so HFW prepared Chinese crispy pig's ears, and GR landed 2 pigs in his back garden to slaughter and cook on the last show.

To summarise; more HFW please, and Gordon… you’re being a meanie guts.

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The Clapham boys’ creation of pate on toast topped with instant noodles made me laugh out loud - absolute genius. Forget Ramsay's curry - imagine the subtle crunch of the lightly toasted Mother's Pride providing a contrast to the meaty unctuousness of the Shipham's paste and the surprising umami notes from the noodles. All it needs is a can of zesty Tizer to cut through the richness of the whole and you're really onto something. Quick, someone give them a cookery show.

I also missed the first half of the show - no Mr Coren this time around?

Edited by Andy Lynes (log)
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I thought the first episode of the new season was alright. The butchers did a pretty good job - much better than the current contestants on Hell's Kitchen. HK feels pretty vacuous in comparison. Who was that lady GR spent so much time schmoozing with the taste test, etc.?

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What a strange show the F word is.

It has a curiously bi-polar opinion of its host Mr Ramsey. He is one of this country’s greatest chefs, whose food seems, more often than not, to lose when put in competition against the home cooked efforts of (celebrity) amateurs.

He is family man Gordon, with his lovely children, and his suberb-garden-slaughterhouse, who comes into the studio to flirt with anything in a skirt.

He is caring Gordon, who wants to get the country cooking, and will pop round to your house to show you how to make a Sunday roast. Then it’s back to the kitchen to bluster about like a pirate with tourettes.

It’s that last persona that really annoys me: Gordon “the acceptable face of bullying” Ramsey. That thinly veiled threat of violence, as he draws himself to his full height, steps into the personal space of his target and screams invective at them. It’s the sort of behaviour that would have you sacked from almost any other job.

Must the price of a nicely cooked meal be a culture of victimisation, humiliation, violence and bullying?

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  • 1 month later...

Last week they caught eels in the Thames. This week they caught a bunch of crayfish in local streams. Doesn't the US have this bounty of local food, free for the taking?!? Here in Colorado if you stand by a lake/stream with a fishing pole, you might catch something (not me -- I'm the worst fisherman). England is at a higher lattitude than most of the US -- I'm surprised they apparently have such an abundance and variety of wildlife. In the US, I think crayfish are found just in the southeast (Louisiana and surrounding areas).

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Thw Eel population has dramatically crashed (~90%) in the last decade or so and the native (white clawed) crayfish is declining rapidly due to the introduction of the American signal (red-clawed) crayfish. In regards to catching crayfish in the UK, I believe that the white clawed crayfish is protected? What were Ramsay et al catching?

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