Things I have learnt since becoming rich (a.k.a. fuck you: Nigella and Jamie)

[TheAutumnHere]

1. Having an oven that holds temperature stops cakes falling
2. A stand mixer simplifies baking by a factor of at least 4, and improves the results
3. Branded vacuum cleaners actually remove dirt from the floor
4. Le Creuset pans don't stick, and just wipe clean
5. Baking with children is delightful japes, when timed the morning before the cleaner comes
6. Corn fed chicken is the bomb

Just leaving a note to my past self - who never cut herself any slack and thought she was a slattern and a crap cook.

I’m confused. Is this a discussion thread? Or is it a note to your past self? In which what have Nigella and Jamie got to do with it?

And to add - better quality ingredients make a huge difference!

DH made his usual bolognese but with the cheapest ingredients we could find (trying to save money) rather than the stuff we'd usually buy. It was tasteless. I still liked it tbh as it was lighter and more tomato-y which is to my taste - but it definitely wasn't a bolognese.

Ummm...what now?

I think maybe OP means that nigella and Jamie have converted her to their MC ways ....

or she may just be bonkers

You’re right OP. This is why rich people telling poor people how they can be better cooks is patronising rot

I'm sorry, did Nigella and Jamie personally tell you that Le Creuset pans suck and that brandless vacuum cleaners only hoover up never-to-be fulfilled dreams and nothing more? Did they lie?

I agree with you about everything apart from 5. Don't do that to your cleaner. That is so lame. "I'll make a big shitty mess for the hired help to deal with."

Glad you have lots of dosh. Be nice. And teach your kids to do the same. Don't say fuck you to Jamie and Nigella. They don't even know you.

Ah stop bragging.

Nigella and Jamie made you feel like a bad cook but it was your cheap tools that made it so?

Two television cooks told you which vacuum cleaner to buy?

Are you ok? Are you secretly the husband from an AIBU post who drank a full bottle of gin last night?

Jamie tells me I can make a meal in 30 minutes - he misses the asterix that tells me that I need top quality kit & a minion to clean up after me.

Nigella sold me a book on how to be a domestic goddess but forgot to check I lived in a palace.

I was all ready to conclude I was shit at baking & disorganised .... then I tried again with a proper oven & proper mixer & found that it was piss easy to bake.

How did you become rich? And how rich?

Yours, an eternally poor person.

I hate to break it to you op, but I manage to successfully make Jamie Oliver meals in my IKEA pans and they clean perfectly well by hand or in the dishwasher. I've worked my way happily through the domestic goddess book without the use of a stand mixer and with only a poor person's oven. The resulting cakes are lovely.

And I'm a slattern because I hate cleaning. I don't know many people with cleaners or expensive hoovers but I know loads with immaculate homes despite the lack of these.

It really strikes me as a thing.

You know how youTubers legally have to tell you if they are featuring stuff they got for free - as a reality check.

Lifestyle shows should have that kind of reality show for how the advice translates to a kitchen without a KitchenAid.

I genuinely believed Nigella baking was accessible to me with an ASDA hand mixer & a rental flat oven. It really wasn't.

Now that I'm a 'good baker' - I'm a bit sad for my past self. It's really all in kit.

Oh - and another one - counter space for prep.

You don't need to be rich to afford a proper oven or mixer, it's not as if we're talking Ferrari territory here are we?

And Sainsbury's do excellent Le Creuset dupes for about a fifth of the price.

@foamrolling - that's the thing - I cooked kind of okay and pushed through - and scrubbed my ASDA pans & got upset about burnt on bits & peeling non-stick.

And now I have new pans - and they don't need scrubbing. I just wipe them out.

I could do it before - which made me feel I should - but I never realised how much easier it was for Jamie and Nigella with the good kit. I feel conned that no one reality checked how much harder I was having to work for the same result. It would have really helped my self esteem at the time.

@ThisIsSamhain - I moved into a web development career and stopped paying childcare. Plus DH qualified.

Game changer.

@BarbaraofSeville - I didn't think I was poor before! We were in central London on family income of 30K .

But that stretches to a small rental flat with no lift & an oven that doesn't hold temperature & ASDA mixer & pans.

My le Creuset pan has something burnt on that no amount of soaking and scrubbing will shift and I can bake perfectly well despite using Wilko cake tins.
My kids help to cook most days and also help clean up. I don't want to teach them that someone else will clear up after them.

I actually agree with you op.

@SnugglySnerd I used to do all my own cleaning badly . Now I work & pay taxes & employ someone else to support me with the household.

The crumbling of moral values right there (!)

I put mine in the dishwasher am I in a bad way

Jamie tells me I can make a meal in 30 minutes - he misses the asterix that tells me that I need top quality kit & a minion to clean up after me.

Well aint that the truth! Earlier this week I was wondering.. Why do you need THREE SAUCEPANS to make a traybake? Boggles the mind haha.

Hello, poor impoverished peasant here.

I'm a good baker. I live in a rented flat. I buy cheap utensils. The most expensive thing I've bought is probably a vintage, ceramic mixing bowl in pale pink. I hardly use it because plastic and pyrex mixing bowls are so much easier but I love it.

This is why I think being rich makes you a better baker is a load of rubbish. Its not how much you earn or which expensive utensils you have. I learnt from my mother and grandmother. My grandmother was working class, my mother is lower middle class. Both are amazing bakers. They are the sole reason I consider myself a good baker. They physically taught me how to bake, let me mess around and practice and experiment. To be honest, I am still learning things from my mum. They didn't talk at me from a screen like Nigella or Jamie Oliver or James Martin.

Well to be fair, £30k for a family in London will be a struggle. But it's probably just bad luck that the oven and pans were rubbish. Plenty of cheap ovens will be absolutely fine, as are some cheap pans.

I have an Asda nonstick crockpot that cost less than £15, is non stick and is great. All my other cookware comes from Ikea, generally mid range, and is also decent quality.

I wouldn't pay for Le Crueset pans because I think they are a total rip off and am too weak of arm to use them anyway, but if I wanted that style of pans, I would get the cheaper but still excellent ones from Sainsbury's.

Oh don't get me wrong, I would love a cleaner but I would not expect them to clear up cooking mess my kids had made.