Make sure your fennel is fennely enough

[Stravaig]

Gee that Rick Stein is a right moaning old git. He's always complaining about something. "Why oh why..."

I wouldn't normally choose to have his programmes on but I usually have iPlayer on in the background just to keep me company when I'm doing stuff in the kitchen, and it just happened that he came on. This time he complained that he didn't like the fennel because it wasn't fennely enough. Tsk.

By absolute coincidence I also happened to be cooking fennel at the time (to go with a lovely brill from Billingsgate and baby potatoes with parsley from the supermarket next door). It wasn't a cheap meal by any means but when you compare it with eating out or even a takeway it was luxury on a budget.

Here's my cooking tip for fennel bulbs.

Get a pan and add a daud of butter.

Cut the fennel into thinish slices and sweat off in the butter.

Add a wee bit of water and a generous splash of pastis (I used Pernod).

Poach the sliced fennel in this liquid.

Add cream (double or whipping, it doesn't really matter).

Then I added a wee pinch of ground nutmeg.

Wow! This is a delicious side and goes especially well with fish and spuds.

Try it and enjoy!

[snooky]

Rick Stein is on my list to switch off as is Monty Don.I find that they are patronising and smug.

[Stravaig]

Unsurpringly, with a surname of Stein, he has German ancestors. What I found out recently (because he said so on a programme) was that one of these ancestors had died without leaving a direct heir and so his money had been shared between various more distant relatives, including Rick. And that was where he got the money to start his restaurant! All right for some, eh?

As for being patronising and smug, there are quite a few people I don't like. Mary Berry could be near the top of my list. But I'm not always a misery guts. There are lots of people, including chefs and cooks, whom I admire very much.

Thomas Keller
Ainsley Harriot
Tom Aikens

And CJ Jackson of the school at Billingsgate is a very impressive lady.

I also like our local fishmongers (Hales & Moore of Rainham, Kent) very much.

[Westi]

Funny this topic came up as I was bemoaning how crap they are today watching Ainsley Harriet making silly sing songs & dances which he did when he was young & fresh faced & it was novel. Rick Stein inflicts his opinions of taste on you which is a no no! Taste is subjective wrapped up in memories & he tries too hard to act educated; but his pub is great for food & service & dog friendly. Mary Berry is a bit like a cooking David Attonborgh rolled out over & over again by the BBC & only one of these has the credentials to warrant the attention.

I kinda like James Martin as he is a bit naughty but has the Chef's credentials being French trained for years but I suspect was better behaved with them. Don't start me on Monty Don - patronising comes to mind with him!

[snooky]

Keith Floyd-best ever.Say no more!

[Stravaig]

I admire Ainsley because he's brilliant at multi-tasking as well as being a very talented chef. His cookbooks are pretty good too. I'm particulary keen on "Gourmet Express". (7 Sept 2000 version) I must admit I find some of his silliness a bit irritating.

I liked James Martin on Saturday Kitchen but never really enjoyed any of his books.

Keith Floyd is quite entertaining but his cooking is, erm, not always up to the mark. (Probably because he's half-cut most of the time.)

James Martin is a big Keith Floyd fan. He owns one of Keith's old cars and collects his early menus.

I know what you mean about the BBC rolling out the same old usuals. Comedians too. People who were funny and alternative in the 1980s have since become more establishment and now they're trundled out at every opportunity. Dawn French is the first who springs to mind. She seems to think she's funny because she's fat. I don't think she's funny at all these days and she wasn't funny in The Vicar of Dibbley. That show would have been better without her. Roger Lloyd Pack was brilliant in it!

[Stravaig]

On the subject of fat, it kinda narks me that top of the cookbook charts (now and goodness knows for how many months/years before) is a book of slimming recipes authored by two women who make the Two Fat Ladies look like Twiggy.

If their recipes were any good for people trying to lose weight then how come they're both so chunky?

The Hairy Bikers, in contrast, did actually appear to lose quite a lot of weight for their Hairy Dieter's book. I'm not a fan of theirs for their TV programmes because they seem so scripted but I love their cookbooks, excluding the silly photos of them. I have been known to glue pages together just to make it easier to avoid seeing an annoying photo again.

[Westi]

The funniest thing about James Martin is he nearly cut his finger off (or maybe did loose a bit) last year! Perhaps following Keith Floyd's lifestyle too closely!

There are just so many 'Cooks' flooding the scene from a brief appearance on a a bake off show or the like. I do buy; or more accurately get given a lot of books but I prefer mooching around 2nd hand shops for real old tattered books. My favourite is a South African boy scout recipe book on Greek cooking from the 50's I bought at the village hall sale. It is so not PC with the pics/drawings of the ads included who probably gave a donation, but the recipes are from Greek residents in the country & some fairly unique where I suspect they made do with the nearest equivalent ingredient they could find. It does not go in the bookcase but wrapped & protected to admire when I think of it. Which as I have had it will come out for another look very soon!

[Stravaig]

I missed James nearly cutting his finger off. Yes, since he moved from the BBC's Saturday Kitchen to ITV's Saturday Morning with James Martin, he's certainly been exhibiting more Keith-like behaviour. And he's getting a bit chunky too - must be all that butter!

I buy at least a couple of cook books every week from Amazon. I really miss my vast collection, which is still in Kyiv.

I also scour the local charity shops and have heaps and heaps of cook books from there. They're invariably in excellent condition. Some are remainders, ie cleared out to create shelf space in the shop for new books. I sometimes wonder if some were given as Christmas gifts to someone who's not very interested in cooking. Also, I've no doubt some came from clearing out a house where the original owner of the book had died. Oh well, the books couldn't have found a better new home. They are much loved and often consulted.