The other thing Jamie Oliver neglects to say is that when you have contacts, you get things for nothing on contra deals.
His whole world is built on that basis.
Oliver is a lot more privileged than me. I have no argument with that, because I'm in a privileged position too.
Currently in my cupboard is a 30g box of saffron which probably has a higher street value than cocaine.
Like I said before, it doesn’t bother me that much that it’s probably a bit stale now. It still has flavour and more importantly, it didn’t cost me anything because it was a present from a restaurateur who is a friend and who would like to secure my continuing custom. Bit like Oliver.
My husband, who is in luxury retail, gives him cashmere jumpers that would sell at £200+. Our bills are subsequently quite low whenever we visit.
Through my job I get lots of freebies – mainly alcohol and popular DVDs and film tickets.
Do you know what? I don’t pay for vegetables at all and pay very little for high quality meat and fish from my local market because the traders like to watch the latest films and have a drink at the same time.
I'm not boasting. I'm just saying that’s the way the world goes round. Except that Jamie doesn’t tell you that it does. He says it's all by the sweat of his brow.
Yes, it is, but not exactly in the way that he tells it.
BTW DH and I don’t have anything useful to trade in the event of a total breakdown of society. We’re just counting on banked goodwill from our contacts.
The lessons I’ve learned from The Walking Dead and seriously scary weapons from the butcher, fishmonger and shoemender would help.
As would the attitude of the two blokes from the vegetable stall. And they also have big knives and hammers for chopping up watermelons and coconuts 