To think that Jamie Oliver lives in a parallel universe?

[iamthenewgirl]

Have watched a few of his programmes over the last few days and I cannot help but think wtf?!

Every dish he makes seems to feed about 100 people. He's cooking a chicken kebab about the size of my leg at the moment. Shiny happy children gorging on massive pieces of chocolate cake. His perfect bloody house and his opinions on how we should all be shopping daily from the food market...

What's wrong with being frugal when you're not poor lovelyrita?

I always find myself looking at his arms because his Mrs does the Little Bird clothes for Mothercare and they all seem to have really really long arms. Are they a family of gorillas or something?

Love his one-pan pear tarte tatin though.

Poppy I don't agree. It seems quite inappropriate. And he describes that one particular incident, but is quoted as saying he feeds them the peppers...

Jamie Oliver has apparently admitted to employing culinary tactics to discipline his children when they misbehave, because it’s “not very popular” to beat them anymore.

Instead, he feeds them Scotch Bonnet peppers to burn their mouths into submission.

“I give them chillies for punishment,” the Daily Mail quotes the TV chef as saying at the BBC Good Food Show over the weekend.

IMO he comes off badly there. I'd be quite angry if my dh did that. He specifically says he uses it as punishment. Not as a one-off joke.

Alice - he was joking. He was presenting to a crowd of people at the time and told it in such a way as to get a rise out of the audience, hence the 'it's not very popular to beat them anymore' comment. Yes, he did rub pepper on an apple but it was probably as Poppy's DF did it - a slightly tasteless practical joke in response to something his daughter did ONCE. He doesn't use it as a routine punishment. The Daily Fail would like you to think he does, but consider the source.

I didn't read it on the Daily Mail, so clearly a different version:

He reportedly went on to describe an incident with his daughter Poppy, 12, whom he fed an apple rubbed with the super-hot chilli often used in Caribbean cooking after she’d been rude to him.

“She ran up to mum and said, ‘This is peppery’. I was in the corner laughing. [Jools] said to me, ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’”

Hardly shoving a pepper down her throat.

Can't imagine Daily Fail cares whether or not we think he does, as it wasn't in the Daily Fail. But neither here nor there. It's still not the act of the an adult.

But I guess those leaping to defend him kind of shows exactly what I was talking about.

Look, it's not big nor clever I grant you, but it's also not child abuse.

If his "Save with Jamie" cookbook wasnt aimed at poorer people why did he have a go at them at the time!

Eh?

“I give them chillies for punishment,” the Daily Mail quotes the TV chef as saying at the BBC Good Food Show over the weekend.

You do know 'The Daily Fail' (or Wail or Heil) is a term of 'affection' for The Daily Mail on MN?

Like I said earlier, if he promoted himself as showing people a few money saving recipes or quick mid week dishes then all very well. But he doesn't. He criticises people and their choices and their lifestyle without considering the reasons behind them.

He has declared himself as some sort of fat lipped saviour of the family and it's incredibly patronising.

Nigella was on tv this week doing a pudding with panettone, what looked like a whole bottle lf alcohol, marron glace and pistachios. The whole thing must have cost £40 minimum.

I do love all these chefs and their programmes, but everyday cooking, it ain't!

I tried to make marrons glace today - it did not turn out well. Things were going fine - I was using a Hugh Fearnley-Eatsitall recipe - I simmered them in sugar syrup for half an hour, fished them out, made more syrup, dipped them, and then it all went wrong - Hugh told me to dry them in the airing cupboard overnight, but as we are heading southwards tomorrow, at sparrow-fart, and as I am way too impatient, I did what another recipe suggested - whacked the oven up full, turned it off, and put them in for an hour - and they are little bullets. Sugary crust without and rock hard disappointment within.

I am going to get some more chestnuts and have another go after Christmas - I am not planning to peel another one between now and Boxing day (mine are peeled and frozen).

I like his recipes and I like his passion for food.

But I don't buy into his lifestyle, any more than I buy into the idea that it is December and snowing when they film his Xmas special .

Reading various interviews over the years, he's actually quite honest. In a recent interview with Caitlin Moran he admitted that family dining in Casa Oliver is not Sunday Supplement territory; that the kids are fussy and often don't eat at a time that suits the adults. Normal stuff .

He's also admitted that he's away a lot, that his wife complains about him working and that he thinks working women are less obssessive about family life than SAHMs (ie he finds his wife obssessive).

But Jools is a working woman isnt she? She has a clothes range at Mothercare called Little Bird.

She has a had a few bits and pieces over the years as a result of being married to JO.
But ultimately, she spends the vast majority of her time as a SAHM.

Te fact that JO has said he finds it a bit much, and the fact that she has said she finds his constant working a bit much makes them pretty normal, no?

I suspect they are on the whole happy, with a few niggles. Normal.

Course they are normal - It's all just for the telly! They seem happy but stressed in RL I bet she rips him a new one at least once a week!

everydayfeminism.com/2014/09/classism-of-eating-healthy/?utm_content=buffer24b09&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Jamie

low income people?

Could have been phrased in a much less pointy fingered manner, people with low income springs to mind.

I mean we aren't allowed to say dyslexics, people with dyslexia, and many others.

Oh, and are only non/working class people low on cash? No? Then it isn't 'classism' either, its financism/moneist...

"and low income people know they are getting judged" - just as you are love, journalist my arse! Even writers for feminist magazines should have a better grasp of grammar than that. Passion does not expiate the need to accuracy!

Then again, it is American, do they have a class system? - calm down, dear, it's only an online magazine

No one is going to watch cooking shows where all they cook is beans on toast and mac and cheese. Of course they are aspirational. The whole purpose is for ratings, and people don't want to watch someone scrounging up their last few pennies to buy a loaf of bread and make it stretch a week. For so many people, that is the day to day reality of their life, they don't want to watch it on tv.