Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Telly addicts

Related: Film discussion forum.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5

Original poster

Economy Gastronomy

117 replies

conniedescending · 12/08/2009 21:01

Anyone just watched that utter wankage?

Their budget came down to £210 a fricken week AFTER the economy drive

thought this would be useful to me but seems I'm doing ok on my £200 a month

OP posts:

merryberry · 14/08/2009 10:28

lol patrol=patron

Starbear · 14/08/2009 10:38

She's Gay. See how you can get the name partner sooo wrong! They live in different houses!
They come across well as a team then. Is he gay?

merryberry · 14/08/2009 10:58

i think they might both be (whispers) cooks

Starbear · 14/08/2009 11:39

merryberry I stand corrected you are absolutely right. I'm not going to shag either of them so it really doesn't matter. They are a good team. Do they own the restaurant together or have they been put together for the programme. Sorry, I'm so nosey because I quite fancy a meal at either one of their places. I'm now a fan and strangely so is DH. (normally hates 'life style' programmes!)

GrendelsMum · 14/08/2009 12:42

I agree - I couldn't work out why they were all so thin. Her I thought it was stress, but I guess the kids are just very active.

No, we don't live near them, but my DH believes that the company she works for is one of his company's clients as he thinks he recognises the shot they had of her at work buying sandwiches.

And the macademia nut brownie thing did make me think - I always think of brownies as being very expensive to cook (they've got eggs in! don't you know how much eggs cost! you could live for a week off an egg! etc) , and macademia nuts as asking for bankruptcy, but if they really do cost 19p each (and perhaps were all frozen to prevent snacking and only defrosted as rations allowed), it's cheaper than succumbing to a chocolate bar at work.

And as Starbear said, when a small business closes, that's a whole group of people out of work. DH runs a small business and actually feeling he's responsible for 20 people's mortgages, food bills and kids' clothes makes him feel very stressed.

expatinscotland · 14/08/2009 12:57

if i were shopping for a house in that budget, that kitchen would be a dealbreaker, tbh.

red gloss. yuk.

merryberry · 14/08/2009 13:08

what's his restaurant then? am blinded by her lovely gold necklace, can't even remember his name

FfreckleFface · 14/08/2009 18:27

I don't see the Jamie Oliver thing at all. She does have tremendous breasts though.

Allegra. Is. Fab.

And they did help that family save money. Maybe in another programme they'll help a family on a smaller budget, and then we'll get better tips.

merryberry · 14/08/2009 18:38

as well as her colouring and head shape and lower lip (!) it's a turn of phrase/accent she has that suddenly makes her sound like him too

CybilLiberty · 14/08/2009 19:25

I think that family was chosen for the telly friendliness of their house...a huge kitchen to shoot in, plus other locations around the place that were pleasing on the eye.

How about a 2 bed coucil flat in Haringey? That would be a challenge for the cooks and the cameraman.

TwoIfBySea · 14/08/2009 19:56

Maybe they need to hire the cameramen from Come Dine With Me, they seem to manage in the pokiest (sp?) of kitchens.

CybilLiberty · 14/08/2009 19:58

Some of those Come Dine with Kitchens would have Environmental Health reeling.

FfreckleFface · 14/08/2009 20:19

I'd loooooooove to go on Come Dine With Me, and have wasted many hours dreaming up my menu.

However, Bloke has banned me from applying on the grounds that all contestants are made to look like wazzocks.

elliott · 14/08/2009 20:30

the next prog looks like more high spenders - this lot put £7k of food down their waste disposal every year
Its pretty easy pruning off large chunks of an already enormous budget, I agree I'd like to see them try something that was actually a challenge!
Paul Merrett I think is married with children.

elliott · 14/08/2009 20:31

I thought this week's mum was a dead ringer for Carol Vorderman.
Luurve the house though
But having difficulty comprehending what their previous income must have been that 20% of it still covers food bills of about £900 a month...

Starbear · 15/08/2009 10:47

My Mum and Ds apparently (heard by DH) howl with laughter when 'Come Dine with Me' is on. No way would I go on that programme. Sorry, for me, if it was a flat in Haringey I won't watch. I want to escape when I watch telly. Even the camera man from CDWM would have problems in every part of tiny house!

sugarpop · 15/08/2009 10:52

I don't think she has a posh restaurant, she is quite anti michelin star snobby food. She is however the creative brains of Leon restaurants.

TheDMHatesMe · 15/08/2009 10:58

Allegra's Leon is cookbook is brilliant, and not at all extravagant. I haven't seen this programme, but will watch it on iplayer - sounds hilarious!

Bumperslucious · 15/08/2009 13:47

JUst watching this weeks on catch up, and watched the first one too.

I must admit I was disappointed too and am now mostly just watching out of voyeurism.

Firstly, the poor mother, the family slating her for her cooking, why doesn't the dad have a go and surely the kids are old enough to help?

And £17,000 a year on food? That is our after tax income for the year!

TBH I am not going to get much from a programme where the budget is £210 a week. Fair enough they have 3 kids but we feed a family of 3 on £40-£50 a week and I still feel that is bad and know there are MNetters who do much better!

This whole 'make a list before you shop, plan meals, take pack lunches' well that is how we live anyway. It's like these fricking thrift books and articles around at the moment (I'm thinking of India Knight's Thrift Book as my friend is reading it) and as I predicted it is smug, self satisfying and unrealistic.

It's like these people who advocate buying second hand furniture and doing it up as a way of being thrifty, people who really need to be thrifty can't afford to spend £200 on a second hand chaise, and in this programme this family should not be spend £1.30 on jar of stem ginger.

mosschops30 · 15/08/2009 13:56

I also caught up on this today and am tired of it already.
Im not veggie but dont eat red meat, last weeks bedrock food was beef mince, this week was beef steak, could they not make something with fish or chicken in it, or something aimed at veggies that everyone could enjoy?
And £210 a week on food we feed 2 adults, 2 kids, and a dog for about £60pw, and that includes everything, I take sarnies for work etc. We certainly dont eat like peasants and we shop at Sainsburys, all these families seem to shop at Asda which is supposed to be cheaper Even when no. 3 comes along I dont expect the weekly food budget to go up that much.
I always plan what we're eating for the week and shop once online, picking up little bits like milk midweek.

What a load of twaddle am thinking of deleting it off the planner but worried they'll make a bedrock with chicken

Starbear · 15/08/2009 18:23

Do you think it will be Asda every week I bet some very expensive monkfish that some one has a mate at ASDA PR dept.

expatinscotland · 15/08/2009 18:56

First one was okay. This one, well, there's really nothing for me in a programme where the people spend more on food than the average wage after tax and NI.

And next week, £21,000 on food and £7000 of it thrown away?

It might be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

Just goes to show how out of touch the BBC is with real Britain.

merryberry · 16/08/2009 08:58

do you know, i don't think there is an asda near me. Ponders. Not hard.

HarrietTheSpy · 18/08/2009 20:52

Aside from the money factor, which I agree they could do better on, frankly I couldn't cope with building an ENTIRE week around one of those bedrock recipes. Was reading the guardian today about what you can do with a whole salmon. All good ideas of themselves, and actually probably budget friendly to be fair. Just think I'd boak after a week of eating a variation on one thing. Could definitely not do it week in, week out.

HarrietTheSpy · 23/08/2009 10:08

what happened to it this week? was it on? (need to see these seven granders in the flesh...!)

Flip

1 2 3 4 5