Very tasty. (Carlton Food Network)

Member Name: mikeb

Product:	Carlton Food Network
Date:	14/12/00 (427 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well presented, variety of shows, excellent website.

Disadvantages: Some shows and chefs not to my liking.

I bought an Ondigital integrated TV set a couple of months ago and, as there was an offer on, decided to subscribe to all the available channels so that I can decide which ones to keep in the future. One of the more specialised channels is The Carlton Food Network.

As the name implies this channel concentrates mainly on cooking, but not just your everyday type of recipes which are common on the terrestrial stations now. The CFN shows a wide range of types of cookery, usually in 30 minute slots, including programmes which concentrate on certain foods like Fish or styles such as American or Indian cuisine. They also try to present cooking in different ways, such as part of a gameshow but I'm not sure this works very well judging by the odd snippet I've seen of this kind of show.

Among the presenters are some well known chefs such as Anthony Worrell Thompson, Gordon Ramsey and Ross Burden together with some not so well known people. Some of the shows are like traditional cookery programmes where one chef will make two or three recipes during their half hour eg Aln Coxen. Others will concentrate on one recipe from start to finish such as a fish dish from actually catching the fish to the finish of the meal.

Whilst I would not claim to be a very regular viewer of the Carlton Food Network, I have always been interested in cooking and quite like to dabble in the kitchen. For this reason I quite like this channel because it's one of those that I may only watch once or twice every few days but if there is a recipe on that takes my fancy it does tempt me to give it a go myself.

In addition to the channel itself, there is an excellent website at www.simplyfood.co.uk which provides links to all the recipes and chefs featured on CFN. This means that if you happen to turn on halfway through a dish you partidularly like the look of, you can easily go the website, find the recipe and then print it out.

In my opinion the s
tandard of the production of all of the shows I have seen has been excellent and the presenters very good. They could however provide more details about the recipes themselves for people who for not have access to the website above.
In summary I'm glad that this channel is part of the package I get from Ondigital, although I wouldn't be prepared to pay alot of money for it on it's own as part of my subscription. Even if you are not a subscriber of this channel, it is worth a look at the simply food website if you are interested in cooking, just for some recipe ideas.

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