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.

3 under 6s cooking makes a bit more mess than "flour traces" though. Think more along the lines of sticky handprints on cupboards!

I agree that life is easier with money, if that is your point. I bought my le cruset pans second hand btw.

I don’t bake because I’m already fat.

But I’m a stonking cook, even with a selection of hand me down pans and knives that I’ve had since forever. My recipes always turn out just right because I make them up myself .

My house is a midden though- I blame DH (or anyone who isn’t me).

I'm not sure it's about expensive kit. But a decent oven makes a world of difference. I have a fantastic oven, and cook amazingly well in it. My mother has a shit oven that doesn't hold heat well, and delivers heat in waves rather than consistently. I cannot make anything particularly decent in it.

For anybody who is keen to learn to cook but on a very tight budget and without much equipment, I'd recommend Jack Monroe, who writes from direct personal experience of living like that.

Also good old Delia Smith, whose cookery books are my staples. She's always very clear and precise. Her recipes always work for me.

Another thing that makes people more relaxed about cooking as they get older and a bit more knowledgeable is learning how to adapt recipes to what you have in store, or just how to throw a meal together with no recipe, just a wealth of experience.

If I look at a recipe that uses a long list of spices, I know it will be lovely if I make the effort to get them all and go through the long process of grinding, grating etc etc as specified, but I also have the confidence and experience to think 'I haven't got the time or enthusiasm to do any of that, but I do like the sound of that basic mix of ingredients. It will still be good if I spice it with I have to hand and that will use up some of that turmeric I bought for that other recipe that I don't want to make again ...'

When I was in my early 20s I'd have gone out and bought all the spices and stuck religiously to the recipe. I learned a lot from doing that, but it's all got pared down as I've got older.

I was reading a book once which said how people always say that souffles are hard to cook, but actually they are not. It's just that when they were "invented" in Victorian times, it would be the cook who made them in an unreliable oven, then they would have to be carried through a couple of cold corridors to the dinner table, during which time they would collapse. The writer said that with modern ovens, with the dining table nearby, they were nothing like as temperamental as their reputation suggests.

I expect it's the same thing as you mean OP. Nothing is anything like as hard, or requires as much skill, if you have the right (read: expensive & modern) equipment.

We're not short of a penny but don't get the mentality who would rather leave their hob a greasy mess than spend 2 minutes with some kitchen paper or a cloth because it's the cleaner's job.

Interesting OP.
Always useful to hear what purchases make a difference. Our next house will definitely have a bigger and better kitchen so it's exciting to know my domestic goddess rating will improve!

YANBU OP. It annoys me how Jamie Oliver waxes lyrical about home grown veg from the garden of his massive mansion and tells us how we should all grow our own because the flavour and quality is superior. Meanwhile most people can’t even afford a house never mind one with a garden big enough to grow veg.

But June is 10 years older than May, so she's had a lot more experience.

Practice makes perfect.

I can see what you're trying to say and that you're not deliberately trying to make people feel bad, but surely you can see that a sort of celebratory post about how much easier life is when you're rich might not go down well?

@NormaBean - don't you just hate me??? I'm so utterly perfect, with no troubles at all, as you can see by my beautiful cupcakes - and now I am so brazen as to honestly compare the experiences of privilege and hardship. Because so long as I stay quiet, no
one feels bad, everyone stays content with the status quo, and all is in its proper place. Because Wilko tins make great cakes, and with a bit of organisation anyones house can look sparkling.

darling of the PTA for her beautiful frosted cupcakes, robot vacuum cleaner quietly humming around an already clean floor

Have you heard yourself?

I'm a good baker with a rental flat oven (that works properly luckily) and a standard electric whisk.
I don't like our electric hobs though. Take ages to heat up/change temperature.

On mumsnet people always say kitchen equipment isn't a Christmas present but it's the thing I ask for most.

Dunno. I've always managed to bake very well with my shitty rental flat oven because I recognised that my oven didn't hold temperature well and used my common sense to adjust my temperatures and cooking times to get good results.

Though I do agree that Jamie Oliver (because he's the preachy one out of the two mentioned) and his 30 minute meals etc are detached from reality.

I get it OP.

It's not a fnar fnar to all the poor people, rather a "and if you had all this stuff that they had, then you would be a cordon bleu chef too".

Totally agree with the rubbish oven sabotaging the very best of efforts, in particular.

Nothing is anything like as hard, or requires as much skill, if you have the right (read: expensive & modern) equipment.

OH and I fully agree with that. He was driven insane when we first bought our house and were doing lots of DIY because he didn't have a decent set of tools (manual/power), so lots of flat pack furniture was wonky and decorating/plumbing/electrical work took far too long with a poor end result. I was the same with my cooking/baking as we bought a brand new "electrolux" oven which I assumed would be good, but it just produced a steady stream of burned meals or a mix of soggy/burned baking - I actually gave up and just reverted back to simple things.

Over time, he's got himself a decent set of tools and now he actually enjoys DIY and has done some pretty decent work. We've just had a new kitchen with a Bosch oven and I can't believe the difference it's made - I'm baking cakes/bread etc 2 or 3 times a week and the results are brilliant.

With the right equipment, most things are actually pretty easy.

@PickAChew - I'm glad your life has the flexibility and order that you can't imagine what difference 2 minutes wiping down the counter might make (and indeed the kind of cooking and kids that only make 2 minutes worth of mess).

Do you pack Flash spray when you stay in a hotel?

Op all of your points have truth in them but as someone who has been very poor and is now relatively rich (millionaire but not multi millionaire unfortunately) I can say that I still cooked from scratch and did the 30 minute meals things before I could afford the fancy gear, and it still tasted great and was worth doing.

Now don't be cranky that you couldn't whip up Jamie Oliver meals as well as he could. After all, he's always saying he only uses your everyday kitchen cupboard items that are freely available everywhere.
Yeah. The £70 a bottle refined yaks milk concentrate hand milked by blind Peruvian monks is in every one's cupboard next to the Tesco value spaghetti hoops....

What are you counting as 'rich'?

Cooking with good ingredients and not trying to make everything fat free/sugar free and healthy, means everything tastes so much better

Of course money makes life easier and an inaccurate oven makes baking a challenge. I think you are intending to be comforting to those who are struggling though, and actually your posts just come across as smug. Deliberately leaving a mess for your cleaner is a shitty thing to do.

TBC I don’t think OP means rich. She just means not poorish

You need an oven that holds its temperature, but you can buy perfectly good cheap ovens. You need a good mixer like a Magimix but they last for years. That’s it.

I have a very expensive two year old oven which is SHIT. I want my old one back.