he should stick to cooking

[chesters1]

listening to mr oliver on telly as i browse

he was talking about potatoes ,when they start to sprout just plant em he says ,if you earth them up he says you can get (nonsence amount of kilo's) .

planting out shop bought potatoes is plain stupid ,the cheap ones are covered in scab (hence they are cheap) and it has the more series side effect that it could harbour potato blight which effects tomatoes as i found out to my horror when my mrs planted a spud to raise herself ,destroyed the total crop of tomatoes and trial plantings two years later of toms still show the symptoms!

[DavyR]

Quite right. You need certified disease-free seed potatoes for planting. It's not as if they're expensive - I get mine from a local shop and pay £1.99 for 10 tubers, which translates (in decent soil) to a good 50-60lb of spuds, even in my tiny garden. Probably even cheaper if you buy them in bigger quantities for a big garden or allotment.

[Jeff S]

listening to mr oliver on telly as i browse

he was talking about potatoes ,when they start to sprout just plant em he says ,if you earth them up he says you can get (nonsence amount of kilo's) .

planting out shop bought potatoes is plain stupid ,the cheap ones are covered in scab (hence they are cheap) and it has the more series side effect that it could harbour potato blight which effects tomatoes as i found out to my horror when my mrs planted a spud to raise herself ,destroyed the total crop of tomatoes and trial plantings two years later of toms still show the symptoms!

 

I was expecting to see Hugh whatsisname and his comments on line caught mackerel and other comments made by him in his new series.

[billy50000]

good on oliver for trying to steer us in the right direction(some may need telling i guess) but i still think he is a irritating git!!

 

i bet on friday nights he is tucked indoors with a greesy takeaway!!

 

The only differance between him `and all the millions of diet books onsale is he seems to think its ok to keep blathering on about the uk`s eating habits and acting like we don`t know we eat lots of crap food!

 

i dont eat crap food and i never take my kids to maccys , i just dont like the company aiming at kids with happy meals with a slither of fruit to try and make it OK!

 

i eat meat meat meat and some veggies and more meat:)and im the sort of guy that doesnt put it on(yet)but i dont need olly to tell me when to do something about it!

 

i can think for myself thanks:)

Edited March 7, 2008 by billy50000

[Steve Walker]

I'm a little bit cynical about restaurant chefs lecturing us about health food. As Anthony Bourdain pointed out, one of the secrets of restaurant cooking is the sheer quantity of butter used. Ever thickened a sauce with butter? Fantastic, delicious, heart attack on a plate. They do it all the time. I stopped doing it at home (except for certain dishes where it can't be avoided) because we were going through obscene quantities of the stuff. Some places reduce cream before using it in sauces, and if it's not butter there's a good chance it's egg yolks. Even the River Café style of quasi-Mediterranean cooking uses gallons of olive oil, and while it's healthier than butter being low in cholesterol and saturates, at the end of the day it's 100% fat. Then we've got salt. I've got Heston Blumenthal's recipe for perfect burgers, and it's excellent. And it contains about five times as much salt as my recipe. Let's not even mention pudding.

 

Point is, restaurants aren't about health food, they're part of the entertainment industry. I don't want Spielberg lecturing me about educational TV, and I don't want celebrity chefs lecturing me about healthy eating. I applaud what Jamie Oliver achieved with school dinners, but as much because it broadened those kids' experiences of food as for the health aspect.