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What to Eat Now

TV chef Valentine Warner sitting in the countryside
  • Posted at 4:00pm
  • 23 July 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 3 comments

I have a confession to make: I eat cheese with fruitcake. Now, to some of you, this won't sound in the least bit unusual. To others it will seem like some kind of deranged affectation.

It never struck me as in any way odd until I moved Down South. But during my first Christmas in London, I cut myself a bit of Christmas cake and carved a nice wedge of stilton to go with it.

My friends were horrified and demanded to know: "What are you doing?" It was then that I realised that they really do do things differently down here.

There continue to be similar misunderstandings and, indeed, arguments about the nature of "supper". To me, "supper" is a bowl of cereal in front of Newsnight when you're feeling peckish at 11:00pm. To others, it's dinner. And let's not get into any rows about "tea" and "dinner". I've been engaged in that particular skirmish for years and the fight has gone out of me.

Anyway, what this is all leading up to are TV cookery programmes and their fantasy worlds, where people have dreamy, sun-dappled lifestyles catching their own food, then cooking and eating it in the open air, where they and their photogenic friends laugh gaily as they drink chilled white wine.

In short, I am dead jealous. To me, a wide-eyed northerner who still isn't sure whether to say "serviette" or "napkin" and who still feels impossibly sophisticated when she eats goat's cheese (I know, I know), TV food programmes embody a life I really, really want.

I realise this is all just bucolic whimsy on my part, but I want to move to the country and cook things outdoors while chortling in the sunshine with my pals. Of course, if I did so, the resulting inferno would lay waste to delicate ecosystems that would take centuries to re-establish themselves. But even so, a girl can dream.

Just look at amiable toff Valentine Warner in BBC2's What to Eat Now (Mondays). He's always frolicking around the countryside and gorgeous beaches, catching things and cooking them. Or he's ferreting out the perfect tomato in a Somerset greenhouse before he rustles up a spectacular rustic pizza in a dinky little portable oven.

I suppose that's why people like me watch What to Eat Now and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's various River Cottage series on Channel 4 or Tamasin Day-Lewis in her flipping lovely farmhouse kitchen on the Good Food Channel. I'm not much of a cook so I don't jot down recipes, I just enjoy the idea of making deep-fried trout croquettes on a riverbank à la Warner. It's escapism, pure and simple.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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Comments

  • Posted on 15 August 2009
  • at 12:02pm
  • by Helen

I come from Yorkshire and have always eaten cheese with Christmas cake - particularly Stilton!! But I too have had horrified gasps from friends who have never done so and just don't get it!! They don't know what they are missing!! Anyway more for me! I also love watching cookery programmes and never write the recipes down - so today I have bought Valentine Warner's "What to Eat Now" cookery book. Can't wait to give some of his recipes a try. Cheers, Helen

  • Posted on 06 August 2009
  • at 9:21pm
  • by Charlie

His trout croquettes are superb - I just cooked them with a couple of trout I caught earlier today!

  • Posted on 05 August 2009
  • at 9:30pm
  • by Debs Riccio

Bless you, Alison - I'm right with you on this one!

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