to wonder if Jamie oliver has lost touch with reality

[ThatVikRinA22]

dont get me wrong, i am a massive fan of his 30 minute meals,

but last week i went to do the cod dish - £10.20 on the fish alone

just been to get meat to do the Sunday roast one - fillet of beef for 4 people would have been £20 for 4 people - for the meat alone

the woman in Tesco behind the fish counter said "he is a pain in the arse and thinks everyone is a millionaire".

a few weeks ago i would have said not, but looking at the prices for some of the meals....he argues that convenience food is just as expensive. it bleeding well is not! its not half as nice i admit but aibu in thinking that he has lost touch with what normal everyday people can afford?

I agree he is not "the brains of the outfit" but I still disagree with your comment that he is "unintelligent and inarticulate"

My DH works in PR so I know very few people make it to JO's level if they are "unintelligent" regardless of how excellent their PR and management teams are.

I went to a Jamie at Home party last week and he didn't even bother doing the cooking demo on the DVD, they drafted some other guy in, who created something which frankly looked like he'd dug it up and put it on a very expensive chopping board.

I'm cursed with a group of friends who have got into JO parties and are all hosting them for each other. Would anyone like to buy a set of mixing bowls? Or maybe a morter and pestle? Some tins?

[cries quietly]

Well no, I haven't personally met him but I am very close to people who have worked with him [not for him.]

They do not describe him as anything like you do, so I would rather take their judgement as I don't know you from Adam.

Has anyone actually managed to do one of his meals in 30 minutes yet???

Clytaemnestra I feel your pain. The DVDs are to me as nails on a blackboard, and I can't afford any of his gadgets even if I wanted them. Grim.

And AIBU not to give a flying doodah that his £70 pestle and mortar may be handmade by African tribeswomen and painted by them during the birthing process, or whatever the drivel in the catalogue says?

Maybe he was in a particularly non communcative mood on the occasions you met him LQ.

American dietitians on my twitter seem to love him

Went to homebase last week, wondered if I'd accidentally wandered into a JO shop, there were Jamie Oliver bbqs, Jamie Oliver grow bags, Jamie Oliver tomato plants, Jamie Oliver seeds, Jamie Oliver strawberry plants etc etc

I mean grow bags - why?

I think there is intelligence andemotional intelligence .Which most successful in the public eye people seem to possess but alot of highly intelligent people dont ;)
JO is not my favorite by any means -am v fond of Nigel Slater although he looks like he is chewing wasps when he eats .

Well I expect he wouldn't give two hoots what any of us think of him.

Last year it was estimated he was worth £65 million, so he must be doing something right.

LeQueen - not really sure what you're on about - but I think he's VERY articulate in front of the camera - in fact that's why he got the BBC job in the first place - because he wasn't afraid to TALK.

I fancy Jame Martin.

Just wanted to put it out there.

"ast year it was estimated he was worth £65 million, so he must be doing something right."

I have no idea if Jamie Oliver is or isn't articulate, but you can't use making lots of money as proof he is, Katie Price has earnt millions of pounds, had her own TV shows etc, but you couldn't describe her as articulate.

I didn't say I used it as proof of whether or not he is articulate.

I said "he must be doing something right"

Just to add ... other chefs have said that it's very hard to talk and cook at the same time - but Jamie's never had that problem.

All TV cooking programmes from Fanny Craddock, through the Galloping Gourmet right up to the present day don't actually show much cooking. Mostly it is assembly with assitants in the background. It is impossible to show all the steps but it is still a great skill to demonstrate cooking and make it entertaining. I admire all the TV chefs. It is much harder than it looks.

I watched a YouTube video the other day where the Chef-Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York demonstrated the knife skills in as used by a professional chef.

A whole 5 minutes!

Children should be learning to cook at home, not school. JO is just trying to get the kids up to speed from what the've been missing at home!

and if it wasn't for Jamie, my DP still wouldn't have a career. It's thanks to Jamie giving him a chance that he is now a fully trained chef. My DP started right at the bottom and Jamie allowed him to work up and train in his restaurant and now he has a career. Jamie does cook in his restaurants still when he can and really believes in what he's doing. He loves food and cooking and always tells the trainee chefs that if they are doing his recipes at home and can't afford the ingredients that they use in the restaurant, they should substitute. He designs most of his recipes so that cheaper cuts can be substituted.
He didn't go in to cooking to become famous that was just a side effect. to him it is more important that people learn to enjoy cooking.

I agree with grizz1 that kids should be learning to cook at home, i did but very few of the people my age did and they now live on convenience food as they still can't cook