| Product: |
Ready Steady Cook |
| Date: |
01/06/01 (170 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Great Food!, Good length of show.
Disadvantages: Ainsley being a berk.
We know the music.
We know the presenter.
We know how to eat.
But until you watch this show, you will not know how to cook.
The concept here is pretty simple. Two members of the public, or two celebrities depending on which version you watch, are given a few quid to buy some ingredients. Then they are each assigned a chef who has twenty minutes to turn these ingredients into a variety of unusual dishes.
Simple enough, and it works. The studio audience then votes to see which chef did best, and the winning team member gets 100 of the nice folding things to walk away with. The loser, a hamper. Personally, I'd rather have the hamper...
So, then, what are the pros and cons of such a show?
Pros are obvious. You get to see some expert chefs cook some great stuff on the spur of the moment. They have additional challenges some days - no spice, no dairy, or maybe they lose some of their ingredients and have them replaces with something totally inappropriate. Also, they then have an expert slot with only TEN minutes to do the same thing at the end of the show.
And the food is always, ALWAYS, perfect. It doesn't just taste good, it looks good. And since it is on just before I start dinner, it is perfectly timed to make ME want to cook more.
And it isn't always a quick fried this, a soup of that, or lets make an omlette. There is a lot of variety in this show. One of my personal favourites from the chefs is Richard Cawley. Camp as they come and extravagnt, and man can he cook! His stir-fried pineapple and mango in butterscotch sauce has become a favourite with me...and that is NOT your normal TV cook fare.
And then we come to Ainsley Harriot. Ainsley replaced Fern Britton a while ago as the show's presenter. And, in my opinion, is much maligned for his performance. Some people find him ingratiating, but I am thinking differently. OK, this is a TV show, but let's face it
, people do NOT watch the show for the competitive element, or even give two hoots about the contestants. Who are they? What do they do? Don't care. Doubt I ever will unless I am on the show. I'm watching to see the chefs play. To get food ideas.
So, Ainsely's apparent creeping up to the contestants isn't really annoying. He's trying to make them have a good time, after all, and they really do seem to enjoy talking to him. He puts them at their ease, and very well too. He works almost on auto-pilot, laughing, joking, and making them have fun while the chefs cook away. And yet, he keeps fairly tight control over what is happening. BUT, he is also a chef, and very good one at that, so he KNOWS what is happening and can explain to the cameras while the poor harrased chefs are stressing to get it all done at the last minute. And he helps too. Good ol' Ainsley.
He comes across not so much as patronising but as a man trying to make people have fun, who wants to tell a rude joke, but knows his granny is in the audience...
Of course, once the contestants are packed off backstage and the chefs are given free reign, then things really get going. He shows that he knows his stuff, and the food turned out is imopeccable.
45 minutes of cooking fun, with a little chat to a boring berk and his wife. well, suits me.
Of course, I don't mean to malign the contestants. Some of them are actually quite interesting people, and can be rather amusing. But it's the food I watch for, and so does almost everyone else.
Bad things about the show? Not much. It's long enough, diverse enough, and keeps me happy. I'd say give it a try. If you can stand Ainsley being a bit of a nerd with an air hostess or making himself look like a chummy twit with a retired chartered accountant in a Hawaiian shirt, then you can stand the worst of it!
Summary:
|
|
