To read the Waitrose magazine for comedy relief?

[LexL]

AIBU to get the Waitrose magazine just to have a good laugh at some of the pretentious recipes? DH and I sit down and go through the recipes/articles for 10 minutes while we have a cuppa and end up in mad chuckles every time! It never disappoints. I mentioned it to a colleague at lunch and whilst I was sharing it she looked at me very sternly and said -"you shouldn't get the magazine just to laugh at it, some people really appreciate those recipes. I love their recipes". I felt a bit bad and apologised if I offended her. I asked if she had ever made one of the recipes and she admitted she had never (ironically, I have made a couple of the easier ones). Am I the only one that finds some of the recipes pretentious and therefore, hilarious? I seriously hope not! Maybe I have a weird sense of humour?!

I will caveat this by saying that Waitrose is the only shop walking distance from my home, so I treat it as my corner shop. So I do shop there but only for a few top up items/special offers.

I like them and I cook from them quite often.

<<ducks>>

I agree with you! The majority of the recipes require some obscure ingredients which require a special trip to buy and seem to have a gazillion different ingredients.
I cook everything from scratch and always shop at Waitrose, but prefer the BBC Good Food website, simple, tasty and you don’t need a bank loan to make.

I've never read their recipes (DH does the shopping and wouldn't think to pick up a mag). But given some of the products in their 'essential' range I don't doubt they manage some fairly esoteric combinations given the full run of their shelves.
As to MN not being the right forum for this thread... I'm pretty sure it's exactly the right place, given that iirc someone had WaitroseEssentialParmesan as a user name.

I have never been in a Waitrose (not avoiding deliberately, just none near me).

Now I want to go to one just for the magazine!

The whole point of a magazine promoting the stuff you sell isn’t it?

You have reminded me, when I used to go to Waitrose with my daughter's dad (the penultimate Mr Lurchers) I always used to get this and read out the bits to him that particularly amused/annoyed me!

(I am from a working class background but because of where I went to university have always been surrounded by middle class people and I have a chip on my shoulder the size of Birmingham it has to be said - I can increasingly see it actually makes me a bit of a dick sometimes).

But yes, happy days with the Waitrose mag - I feel you OP! Haven't been to a Waitrose in years.....

Why not, darling!

I'm just going to Sainsbury's to get some porcini mushrooms. Hopefully the riffraff in there won't breathe too many germs on DTwins.

I'd also like an example of a silly or obscure ingredient.

Presumably everything in the magazine has ingredients that are sold in Waitrose.

I love googling the more obscure ingredients because most of the time I have no idea what they are

You beat me to it.

Intriguing ingredients- gnocchi wasn't something I grew up with , I had to google it - I see it as a posh version of smash , probably no better for you but would meet a wealthy MN's approval

Or the various flavours of oil - walnut oil for example - who has a kitchen big enough for half a dozen different types of oil ?

You need to get a life. Some people like good food & interesting recipes. We don’t all live on egg and chips.

At risk of sounding terminally middle class:

Gnocchi has been around for ages, even Delia has a recipe for it.

Off the top of my head I have olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, vegetable oil, walnut oil, pumpkin seed oil, sesame oil and rapeseed oil in my cupboard. Possibly more. It's not a big kitchen either.

What is surprising is how negative people are about someone else finding sone amusement in life - harmless amusement

Let your hair down , see the funny side of life - it's free

I didn't grow up with gnocchi either. But my 80 yr old mum now sees it as an easy staple.

Ah I was scrolling thinking you were going to attach a photo of one of the recipes.

I agree - I am really surprised by people coming on to tell the OP off for a harmless chuckle. What have things come to?

I'm Not the op and don't have more than a few pages of Waitrose recipes to hand so I don't know what she was referring to specifically

I suspect she found this a hostile place

I found it interesting that someone was happy to tell op off for laughing at someone's else work - whilst basically be very negative about the OPs work

It doesn't really have me rolling around in stitches or strike me as particularly extreme, but if it brings you joy then nothing wrong with that! The recipes are clearly designed to consist only of ingredients you can find at Waitrose but all or nearly all to include something that you would have to go to Waitrose (rather than another supermarket) for, which is why they tend to include something more unusual.

There used to be a IG (?) Page called "Overheard at Waitrose". It was basically poking fun at the type of people you might expect to shop at waitrose.

I shop at waitrose fwiw. I like it. But I might still laugh (maybe not aloud) at some of the stuff in there / their magazine tbh... Definitely get a bit outraged at some of the prices (and yet still shop there and have done for years)

It's a great cost of living tip - why spend money on going out to a comedy club when you can read a recipe for roast cabbage, leek risotto or Bakewell tart instead and have all that laughter for free!

Black bean and orange stew sounds minging.

It really does. No thanks to that!

Don't you have to pay for that magazine?

I must be dead inside. I've never laughed at a supermarket recipe magazine.

To be fair to the Waitrose magazine editors, they do usually have some suggestions at the back for using any leftover creme fraiche/galangal/unicorn tears that you might have bought in specially for the star recipes. And I really applaud them for trying to draw attention to the fact that food is seasonal, rather than to be expected year round at huge environmental cost.