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07:16:00 o'clock BST
Lets Get Cooking
This is a picture of me....up at the big house...doing what I do everyday...cooking! I'm not a famous chef....except to the people I cook for. I understand that today is AOL Home Cooking Day with Jamie Oliver. Now I, personally, have never been a fan of Jamie Oliver's cooking style. He is entertaining to be sure, but I find his style very lacadaisical. I think the beginner cook, who knows nothing whatsoever about cooking would have a very hard time getting any of his recipes to work out...the way they are written you would have to have, at the very least, a strong basic knowledge of cooking to have any measure of success with them. He is, though, very entertaining to watch and comes across as a very friendly and amiable chap. I think it's great what he's done with encouraging young people to get up and get in the kitchen and start cooking. I admire him for his efforts with training young people, (who otherwise would have ended up as un-employed, un-educated youngsters, holding up the local street corners), as chef's giving them a good career and hope for the future. I think it's wonderful what he has done to educate parents, children, schools and the government on the quality of school dinners, and to get a whole dialogue going about it...inspire change and bring about a whole school dinner revolution. Kudos to him! I think he has a lovely little family and I wish him all the best in the future...but he's let me down!
I was very excited about this idea of cooking with Jamie day...and so I went to the page to have a look, download the recipes etc. There was a shopping list there so I downloaded it and printed it out. Wow, what a list of ingredients. Now, I am pretty lucky. I'm a capable cook and a lot of the stuff on the list, I normally have in my larder just as a matter of course, but I took the liberty of going to the Sainsbury's shopping page (picking Sainsbury's as that is the store Jamie promotes) and I did an online shop for all the ingredients. The normal average person in this country would have had to to just that. I decided at the outset that I would choose organic ingredients, as that is what Jamie would do, and that is what I would do in most cases, and in fact that is what he suggested in his shopping list. Now, my husband and Iare not rolling in the dough, although I do roll a lot of dough in my line of work (*wink *wink). I make a fairly decent wage at the end of the day and my husband is retired with a basic state pension. We have a weekly budget of £75 for groceries and, more often than not, I go over that, much to my husband's chagrin. Food is expensive in this country and getting even more expensive as time goes on. When I first arrived over here 6 years ago our weekly budget was £50, and that was really cutting it fine. It didn't allow for any luxuries. Moving from Chester down here to Kent was a real eye opener. We immedately saw a huge increase in the cost of our groceries and I really struggle to keep the food costs in line with our budget. Anyways, to make a long story short...after putting in all the ingredients on Jamie's shopping list and pricing them, and adding them up...the total came to a whopping £62.18.....that is for three courses....one meal...one day....a nice salad, a pasta main course and brownies for dessert. I didn't even touch the equipment list...but if you didn't have the proper equipment to use, equipping yourself would have added a whole lot more to the total. A lovely meal to be sure....but not worth spending 3/4 of my weekly food budget on.
I really admire Jamie for what he is trying to do and I respect his desire to get people off their butts and back into the kitchen. Too many families these days live on ready meals and takeaways and we are fast becoming a nation of fatties! Let's keep it real though Jamie! For that kind of money I could go out and eat a meal in a fairly half decent restaurant and somebody else could do the cooking for a change! I'm all for encouraging people to cook. I'd love to have my own cooking school and am in the middle of writing my own cookbook, but I think if you are wanting to encourage the British Public to stay home and cook their own meals for their families you have to be a bit more realistic about it. This menu might be alright for, say an uppermiddle class family that has a hefty weekly food budget, but it does nothing for the rest of us that struggle just to get by...it does nothing for the very type of people it should be encouraging to cook...low income families that virtually live off of fatty sausage rolls, cheap meat pies and deep fried sausage and chips from the local chippy. I could be wrong here (I have been known to be wrong before) but I think this could have been done a whole lot better...and that's my two cents worth this morning.
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Marie,
I looked at the very same list on the website and thought exactly the same thing as you. It is way beyond my budget and we are considerably better off than a lot of people in this country. I love Jamie Oliver too, and admire his work immensely. He is an enormous driving force for home cooking and healthy meals. But I will have to watch tonight instead of take part!!!
Kate.
http://journals.aol.co.uk/bobandkate/AnAnalysisofLife/ -
I agree with you Marie, we are all drifting away from proper food but I always find the time to do traditional cooking.....I never microwave a steamed pud, I still have the old fashioned steamer!!! We are on a reasonable salary but Jamie Oliver's recipes and 'special' foods from sainsbugs are soooo expensive. I'm glad I am not the only one who goes over budget each time we go food shopping.....it is worse when Rob comes with me..things just seem to fall into the trolly, LOL!!
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Lovely picture of you in action .I do agree Jamie isnt being realistic with the recipes ,who could afford to spend that much on one meal ?,.,.,Jan xx
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Maria, I agree with you 100%. Our weekly grocery bill averages out about the same as yours - all told. I love this picture because it is you doing what you love best! Good to know that you and I have the same fluff too! LOL Although Jamie's intentions are good, he would be wise to remember his humble beginings when thinking up menus.
Susie
13/10/06 16:54