The Paunch on Market Kitchen

One of our New Year resolutions was to make a TV appearance of some sort. So when the opportunity to appear in the Market Kitchen audience came up we decided to take half a day off work and get stuck in.

Andrew from Optomen, the TV company who produce the show, was really friendly and put us at ease. Being surrounded by foodie legends such as Tom Parker-Bowls, Matthew Fort, Paul Rankin and Mark Hix had the potential to be a it daunting. But the crew were brilliant at making everyone in the eclectic audience feel at home. Baristas served coffee and water all day... so much so that Cowie and I were bursting for the loo for much of the afternoon!

Paul Rankin cooked a superbly tender piece of fillet steak with a pepper corn and mustard crust with colcanon mash. Juicy and full of flavour, the steak was pretty special, as was the cabbagey mash. I'm looking forward to giving this recipe a go myself quite soon. It's simple and just chefy enough to impress!

Hilariously, Cowie and I were asked to give our opinions on camera! Cowie did a great job, praising the steak's tenderness, leaving me to give the verdict on the colcanon mash. It's hardest enough to type, let alone say! My first attempt got the better of me... my voice got a bit flutter, but my second attempt seemed to a bit better. It's quite intimidating having a camera and microphone thrust in your face without a moment's notice!

All the food we got to sample was delicious... albeit not without controversy. I am a firm believer in the fact that you are supposed to add salt to your scrambled eggs when you plate it up and not during the cooking process. Salt makes the egg protein break down and results in gloopy eggs. Essentially you land up with scrambled egg soup, which is what Tom Parker-Bowls served us. I couldn't help but mention this on camera... I just hope I don't sound like a complete prat!

Cowie and I had a great chat with Mark Hix about is Dorset roots and his new venture in Lyme Regis. We can't wait for it to open in June and are really pleased to hear that the Riverside is going to carry on going too.

But the best thing happened at the end. I got a chance to talk to one of my heroes and the man who inspired the name of the Paunch - Matthew Fort. Our blog is named after his column in the Guardian, "Around Britain with a Fork". His advice was extremely helpful and his story about how he got into food writing was refreshingly familiar - yet another talented man who graduated from the school of hard knocks that is otherwise known as the advertising industry!



His key points were:

Find your tone of voice. Keep writing. And writing. And develop it every day in everything you write.

Be interesting.

Write about things that your audience want to hear.

Be pithy and single minded in the focus of your work.

Punchy headline. Gripping first sentence. And a singularity to the article. Don't deviate and waffle.

Fantastic advice. I'm keen to put it into practice. Inspired to write more. Find my niche. Develop my tone of voice. Develop a relationship with my audience. It's just like advertising really. Matthew, thank you so much for the chat. It meant a lot more to me than I think you realised.

The programme is being aired on April 1st on UKTV Food. I'm looking forward to watching it and making the most of Matthew's advice.

Master Chef Final

Cowie and I are both very excited about the final of Master Chef tonight. James has got to win, but we are both big fans of Emily who we are predicting will create something absolutely bonkers tonight. She's certainly got a lot of friends. My colleague is in love with her!

Here's what Cowie would cook if she was in the final:

Cerviche of trout.

Anjou of pigeon, with an velvet jus, Jerusalem artichokes and greens

A trio of chocolate puddings... a mini chocolate and hazelnut soufflé, mini chocolate fondant, mini white chocolate moose with raspberries.. It would somehow all marry together and be really light!

Maybe a twill bicie on top!

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And here's my menu:

Skate cheefs, sous vide with black pudding foam. Served with a yuzu tuile

Venison fillet with 80% butter mashed potato

Tuna with sugar cane rammed through it Cuban style

Candy floss with rose petals

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It's got me all excited. Looking forward to the showdown tonight and very disappointed that it will all be over so soon.

Why do celebrity chefs pose like this?

What is it about celebrity chefs that makes them pose with their arms crossed on the front cover of their books? I saw these books by James Martin and Wozzer side by side in Waitrose and wondered whether it was a trait that other chefs had too. You can see below that Jamie has also dabbled with the arms crossed technique. But not in anyway near the way that Wozzer and James Martin do.





If you have a look at Jamie's other front covers a patern emerges. The arms crossed thing is a bit of a red herring. In all of his front covers he looks relaxed. Informal. Making cooking look like a piece of piss. He doesn't need to do the whole arms crossed thing to look important or commanding.









Maybe you could say that Jamie's got his arms crossed to add a bit of gravitas to his "Cook" book. And in the Jamie at Home book it's a fairly relaxed bit of arm crossing afterall.

Gordon's front covers are interesting too. But a bit harder to decypher. It seems that he's gone from being a bit shy about his face by covering up his chin and not looking to camera to a place where he is now very happy to act as a model - almost like Tom Cruise in Cocktail. See what you think...









During the course of Gordon's rise to fame loads of girls have fallen head over heals with Gordon for his gruff, assertive masculinity. His contoured face has become iconic and he's stopped hiding it away.

Hugh's front covers are the most consistent of all. Very Hugh. You get a picture of Hugh eating or holding whatever sums up his latest book. Simple. So Wittingstall.







It all goes to show that celebrity chefs are major brands these days. The same rules of branding apply to them as they would to any of the brands I work on. The look and feel is crucial and consistency of image is really imporant too.

I hope my amateur interest in body language hasn't bored anyone too much!