to think Heston Blumenthal's WTF

[pud1]

i wateched him make risotto late last night, i have seen a few of his programs and have always wondered is it worth all that time and effort.
is he not just a short, bald, over considered tosser ( may be a bit harsh but you get my point)

I quite like his scientific approach - at least is different to every other inflated ego chef on the TV

I admire his tenacity in seatch of perfection.

Did you see the baked Alaska/hot ice cream one? That was really interesting

Heston thread here

Anyway, he's not short, is he?

No no no, I love him. Granted you probably aren't going to go the full hog, but he has some really interesting ideas you can extrapolate. I loved the sorbet filled chocolate tube he made and froze into the centre of the icecream (in that Baked Alaska one) - that's doable and I'm going to try it.

I really like his passion for food.

i think i have just assumed he is short, he looks like my firends ex ( complete prick) and he was short with small man syndrome. maybe thats why i dont like him

Although there is no way I could make his food following the recipes I do like to watch this programme. I find it all really interasting, love the way he cares so much about it all to put himself out there to find out what works and what doesn't, the science behind it all, everything.

Far more interesting that listening to Gordon Ramsey swearing or Gary Rhodes being pompous about it all TBH!

Clarice, his Baked alaska was fabulous, wasn't it ?
I didn't think he was small. I do think he is a tad odd looking, but hey, you should see me !

I don't think he's bald either, I watched him the other night...has a number one I think. So yabu on this one

Exactly Lapin, it's the extrapolation.
You understand the processes better after watching him and adjust your own recipes based on it. (Next time I do pizza I'm going to put the stem in when I cook the sauce.)

omg, that 'perfect' burger he did looked AMAAAAAAZING!

He's a bit of a foody nerd, but I think you have to watch it as a food documentary rather than cookery programme! I don't think he expects us to replicate things at home (I hope ... dry ice, anyone?)

And his 'best hamburger' prog. was particularly fab.

just me then, i saw the fish pie one and i do think smoking a bit of fish in a mesh squirell trap is one step too far. didnt see baked alaska, maybe it will make up for the smoked fish

He does seem to agonise over every little thing to a maddening nth degree. Interesting to watch but it's not cooking for the real world. He'd faint dead away watching me cook!

My dad has been into that molecular gastronomy stuff in a small way for years - I think he might have known Nicholas Kurti once.
I always used to think he was a freak for obsessive temperature measuring and logging different potato varieties used when making chips etc, but now clearly it is very trendy
(Mind you, he never used to make particularly delicious food as a result of it, so perhaps he was missing something somewhere )

Oh he always does mad stuff like that - at home you just buy smoked fish.

Kathy - he's completely right about the tomato vines though, isn't he. I'm going to try that, especially since it's easy to buy tomatoes on the vine now. (or grow em!)

LOL at KathyMincepies....

"Mind you, he never used to make particularly delicious food as a result of it, so perhaps he was missing something somewhere"

The mind boggles at a pseudo Heston gone wrong!

he was on soccer am using liquid nitrogen to freeze a green tea and lime mousse

so it was a sorbet thought it was a bit over the top

I like to think of him as a food nerd. I like that. He is meticulous and a perfectionist.
Atleast he brings something a bit different to the table.

I read a Giles Coren article about him and he mentioned having a recipe for parmesan icecream; I thought "hmm" and we tried making some. Oh my god, it was gorgeous, it works so well (and it's incredibly easy). So now we do a dinner party starter which is essentially an insalata tricolore (tomato, basil, mozzarrella) - pressed tomato pave, basil sorbet and mozzarella and parmesan icecream. Looks amazing and is really really simple to make.

That's what I mean by the extrapolating. The pressed tomato is a Richard Corrigan thing; I love him too!

I would love to do the dry ice thing. It would be fab as an Xmas day dessert, instead of flaming a pudding, wouldn't it? I did look for dry ice on the internet but the minimum order was 12kg or something daft

Think of the fun you could have with 12kg of dry ice - you could get it for Hallowe'en...

When the children are old enough to appreciate it

lol he must be quite cool if he was on soccer am

the list of ingredients in his recipes span 4 or 5 pages. Hester Bloomin'-complicated. I admire his passion, but then Jamie Oliver is also passionate about food, and I can actually attempt his recipes.

But you don't have to follow everything in the recipe to get something out of it - that's the beauty of it

Santaslittlepeatbogelf puts it very well - it's basically a food documentary.

(love 'Heston Bloomin-complicated' though!)