To think that Jamie Oliver is a Goady goady mc judgy pants personified!

[LEMisdisappointed]

judgey much?

It reads like a clip from the daily mail - actually, it probably is!

Now there are people, i have a friend who can make an amazing meal out of apparently nothing (she is italian though!) in ten minutes flat - although she has lots of those ingredients that are expensive to buy in the first place but go a long way,i would never know what to do with them!

I am such a boring cook, i have a small repertoire (sp) of meals that i cook - over and over again, the ingredients in my cupboard are basic because i can't afford capers and porcinni mushrooms etc. I rarely fall back on ready meals and feed my family healthily. But its boring really and i can understand why some people use ready meals - time, money - So yeah, making your own pizza will be cheaper than dominos or tesco fineset but it is not going to be cheaper than icelands £1 pizza is it? Not from scratch, not from the start - yes if you divide the amount of pizzas your flour, cheese, tomato sauce and anything else you want to put on it by 20 it might be cheaper but those ingredients have to be bought in the first place.

See, I would welcome cheap and easy ways to make my meals more exciting and thankfully we are not on the breadline this month, but im not going to watch that smug little bastard telling me how i can just knock out some pucker tucker out of a packet of anchovies and dust from the cupboard!

I have always thought him a smug twat - this confirms it!

[alemci]

STD

what is it about the crotch on boy's school trousers. I am always repairing my ds' s

[printmeanicephoto]

I agree with Jamie. I think some people's priorities are skewed - ie. an expensive tv but shite, unhealthy (but expensive) food for their kids. Takeaways and most processed food costs more than cooking simple meals from scratch.

I still refer to my "Grub on a Grant" cookbook even though I finished college 20 yrs ago. Cooking from scratch can be cheap and easy!

I think if the parents don't have the cooking skills to pass onto their kids, then I think it falls to the schools to educate the kids about healthy eating and how to cook. From my experience, the schools do indeed bang on about healthy eating, but sadly I can count on one hand the amount of times my kids have done any baking/cooking at school.

[mignonette]

I am sorry From. Been to the dentist earlier and always have a little Diazepam sedation to take the edge off of my terror. Guess it took too much of an edge off!

[LadyEdith]

Haven't read whole thread and these points have probably been made before, and I agree he comes over as a smug tosser. In principle I think he's right, BUT, and it's a sizeable but...

You can cook very cheaply from scratch, if you have the infrastructure to support it, i.e. some nice big pans, a freezer, freezer bags, local cheap supermarkets or markets, the upfront money to buy in bulk to take advantage of the best deals, your own transport, your gas/electricity nicely taken care of via direct debit, you have recipe books and/or you are from a background where you know how to cook nice meals, and you have the time and motivation.

Cooking cheaply from scratch is very hardgoing and ineconomical in the absence of these things and this is why it doesn't happen in many families. It is more economical in the long run of but you need upfront cash which many of us will never have.

[fromparistoberlin]

yes, on re-reading I can see why you misunderstood!!! no worries

[mignonette]

Sorry From I think I may have totally misread your comment. Apologies for that if so. I feel I am fighting a rearguard action here w/ respect to this issue and I feel pretty despairing of the way this country is going especially w/ regard to the vulnerable.

[mignonette]

From I cannot take your comment seriously considering the job I have been in for nearly 30 years and the food bank I help w/. Of course I don't care. I don't care at all (ironic emoticon for any literalists)....

[mignonette]

I've even planted the stalky bits after tearing off the leaves and they regrew Ourye. Try planting a couple of plants in a pot and put it either on the window sill or by the back door w/ a net over it. Either way it is cheaper than a £1,50 pack of seeds that may not germinate.

[fromparistoberlin]

i get you come from a good place mignon wanna be jools

i genuinely think he cares, but you clearly dont , very much DONT

opinions are like arseholes!

[ouryve]

I've never thought of doing that with the living lettuce, mignonette! I used to keep a packet of mixed leaf seeds and plant some in a long planter, every few weeks.

Mind after June, the cabbage whites get hold of it all before I do. I'm probably best sticking to keeping the tray on my kitchen windowsill.

[mignonette]

Ubik Good point. He hurts and offends. Life is hard enough for people as it is. It is possible to promote a TV show like his (though how the poor can watch it without those plasma screens I do not know) without insulting half the nation.

Most people I know work really really hard. And yes, they benefit others through that plus themselves (hopefully). And they donate to food banks and charities.

I have a rare time off today as just been to Dentist and have numb mouth and slightly sedated (Diazepam) as terrified of them! Before somebody comes on here and says I am lazy for being online a lot .

[ubik]

Jaysus mignonette you need to have a talk to JO about the definition of hard work

Which also pisses me off - so many people in this country work really, really hard at jobs which benefit folk far more than being a TV chef and yet we are all supposed to kiss his arse when he pontificates about 'the poor.'

[mignonette]

Ubik I have been a psych nurse for 28 years. I understand shift work and split shifts. I have worked night shifts from 2030 hours leaving at 0800 the next day then back on a late at 1330.

Plus on calls now where I go back to work at 0900 after spending all night attending 116/117 or section (2)'s.

[ubik]

TBH mignonette this is what shift work is like. I only work 18 hours a week (allegedly) but over a bank holiday weekend will work 3x 10-hour early shifts starting at 7am, finish at 4pm and then go straight onto 2X nightshift 11.30pm - 8am.

[mignonette]

Now who is bitching about his 'talented' wife Jools, From .

I work w/ some of the most marginalised people you can imagine and these comments filter down into a groundswell of anti feeling. That is why I get passionately angry. These comments hurt real people. And I am sick of fools like JO drumming up publicity in such a cynical way. It is an easy, lazy wayto do PR.

[mignonette]

I meant to write +48 hour shift patterns for the cinema. They regularly do 60 hours, some of them with cinema multiplexes open from 10 a.m till gone Midnight. Then they have to get home afterwards.

[fromparistoberlin]

i reckon mignonette is one of JOs exes, cruelly dumped. seething as she looks at the lovely "jools" flogging mothercare rip offs in Red magazine

I jest, but suprised he deserves this vitroil TBH!

jesus, save it for Assad

[mignonette]

That I would love to know. He moans about EU working directives and uses the fact that he worked himself half to death to complain that this no longer is allowed under the law. However find me a catering business which doesn't override the directive and I'd be surprised. Even our local cinema puts staff on 48 hour shift patterns (ex job of DD) and if employees dared to object, they got rostered for either the lousiest shifts that nobody wanted or never got a bank holiday time and a half shift again so they learned to keep quiet if they wanted to keep their zero hours contract job.

JO states " I think our European Immigrant friends are much stronger, much tougher. If we didn't have any, all my restaurants would close tomorrow. There wouldn't be any Brits to replace them".

Now I cannot be sure why he doesn't have many British staff working for him but my DD's teashop/patisserie is staffed by a mix of British and non British employees and according to DD they all work their asses off. Now it could be said that an employer wanting to override EU working directives will choose his employees w/ care to ensure they will not complain about this.

How would we obtain JO's rosters for his restaurants? That I would like to see. If he cannot run his empire in profit within EU law he is less of a success than he wants us to think he is.

Simply because he once worked 15 hour days aged 13 doesn't make it right. We once worked doctors to near exhaustion and put children in factories. Maybe we should scrap employment laws totally?

[ubik]

You can opt out of the working time directive. It's a very macho industry. BIL works double shifts, runs marathons and plays contact sports.

I look at masterchef and these people with nice jobs who want to work in a kitchen and I'm

[Darkesteyes]

A little early yet Faster but i wouldnt be surprised if journos start doing some digging especially after todays remarks.

[FasterStronger]

have you seen stories in the papers where JO's staff say they are being abused?

[FasterStronger]

mignonette - so is JO breaking employment law?

[mignonette]

My DD is a patissiere which she went into after leaving a Russell Group university w/ a first class honours degree. She is at work by 3 a.m making our bread and cakes then continues until 5 p.m. She then does stock control, rosters etc at home. She knows she has no choice if she wants to own her own patisserie one day.

The industry stinks.

[mignonette]

Faster I want my meals served by a Polish/Lithuanian/English person who is properly paid and works no more than the EU maximum and is not made to feel that they are a slacker because they won't do more.

If you are comfortable w/ the abuse especially of foreign nationals then that is your prerogative .

I personally like living in a multicultural country, work alongside nurses from at least eleven countries that I count off the top of my head. I believe in equity and a fair days pay for a fair days work and not the exploitation of an eager workforce.

[PoppyAmex]

Dark that's horrible!

I wonder how many of those people are British nationals though - imagine if you're stuck in that environment because you don't have a choice and/or don't speak English and can't find something else.