blog

Some people have emailed me about the Food Destinations event, so I wanted to answer them here in case other people had the same questions.

Today is April Fool's Day of course. Every year this day rolls around I remember the best food-related April Fool's hoax ever: the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest documentary broadcast by the BBC.

This week's Top Chef was about convenience foods. As much as I'd like to make food from scratch using the freshest of fresh ingredients all the time, the reality is that during the week at least I just whip up stuff that I can make quickly. I'm sure this is the case for a lot of people, especially if you work full time and/or have kids. And sometimes, we don't even have the time to go shopping, and have to fall back on whatever we have stashed in the pantry or freezer.

Reading the IMBB 24 "Make It In 30 Minutes" entries hosted by Too Many Chefs, it struck me that a lot of the participants were sure to include a dessert in their meal. When I was ruminating over what to make it never even entered my mind that I should make a dessert, because I'm not a dessert person.

The theme for this week's Top Chef episode titled Nasty Delights, was making food that looks disgusting into something delicious. But the other theme, which seems to be developing as a major emphasis in this series, was the importance of the chef as a marketer and promoter of his goods.

MasterChef is the BBC cooking contest program to find the "best amateur chef in the UK", ended last Friday. The winner was Peter Bayless, a 60 year old former advertising executive. His selection was quite a surprise to a lot of people, and the discussion about this on the BBC Food message boards has been quite heated, to put it mildly.

Well, I had managed to avoid getting a cold all winter, but the recent wild temperature swings here brought on a full-blast case of coughing, fever and other unpleasant things, which came to a climax over the weekend. Thankfully I had my cans of Ricolatee (Ricola Tea).

First off, an apology to regular readers...I've had a pretty bad cold this week, which meant mainly staying in bed with a box of tissues, drinking gallons of herb tea and feeling sorry for myself. But even though I don't have much of an appetite I still enjoy watching food shows. So here is my episode 2 review of Top Chef. (This is the cooking contest show that airs on Bravo TV in the U.S., and is also available for purchase/download from the iTunes Music Store.

[Update: As many people have pointed out in the comments I now know that it's puntarelle or catalogna. So no more need to comment or email me about it - thanks!]

I'm starting out the week with a mystery. What is this vegetable?

Warning: this entry contains major spoilers for the first episode of Top Chef.

Top Chef is a new reality show that airs on Bravo TV in the US. It's a cooking contest show where contestants vie for the privilege of being crowned Top Chef. (And some prize money too.) The first episode is being offered for free on the iTunes Music Store. (Note, it's free but you still need a U.S. credit card to download it.)