My Favourite Cook Books

The other day, while sifting through a pile of cookbooks I came across The Return of the Naked Chef. And with it the Jamie Oliver mania that made Jamie Oliver to cookery what the Beatles were to music. I have fond memories of watching the programmes "The Naked Chef" and "The Return of the Naked Chef". If I remember correctly, the show used to come on on a Sunday afternoon and I couldn't wait to get my fix of the hot Essex boy who lived in a funky London flat and who drove a little Vesper to Borough Market  (where I would wonder through on my Friday lunch breaks when I worked on the South Bank in London - I would always take longer than my allotted hour perusing the stalls with all their wares- oops!) to get his fresh ingredients which he would then, with a lot of charm and very little effort - that was the idea of the Naked Chef: stripping it down to simple good tastes and easy methods- into something super tasty which they'd all enjoy at the end of the programme.

He'd give me the salad dressing to make and while I shook the jam jar

and batted my eyelids at him,

he'd smile and saying to the camera that he'd have to taste it,

"Wow! That tastes fantastic love!"

How I dreamed of being part of that scene: Jamie, would invite me over to his flat as they were filming one of the episodes and we'd whip up something wonderful. He'd give me the salad dressing to make and while I shook the jam jar (do you remember he had this brilliant idea of making salad dressings in a jam jar; no bowls to wash up) and batted my eyelids at him, he'd smile and saying to the camera that he'd have to taste it ( all good chefs do, you know!)  "Wow! That tastes fantastic love!" In the way that he does and then the programme would come to an end and all our friends would arrive and we'd all have an extraordinary amount of fun as the credits ran. All the viewers would strain to see us laughing as we went out of focus in the background, sorry that they couldn't see more as the production company's name and logo took over the screen signalling the absolute end of the episode. And twenty minutes later they'd still be wondering what the happy little dinner party was doing now.           

Ok, so I had a tendency to daydream- and besides, Jamie was already married at that stage to his missus, "the lovely Jools", to whom he dedicates Return of the Naked Chef. But my, who thought that advertising organic ingredients (a buzz word that was relatively new at the time in SA) could be so sexy. But then, as an 18 year old food-lover, the blond 24 year old chef on TV didn't have to try very hard to make it onto my list of most desirable men. Who says that food is only the way to a man's heart? Give me a man who can russel up a peach, rocket and goats' cheese salad or sticky ribs any day!

On a meagre allowance, I remember saving up to buy the book with Jamie's smiling face on it. I had previously wangled The Naked Chef as a Christmas present and I would lovingly turn the glossy pages with their large, bright pictures of food between the recipes. I was startled, paging through the book now, to see how young he looked! Now that I'm older, bad-boy Gordon Ramsay's sharp looks catch my imagination.

But this post is about Jamie. You can't stop the passage of time, but the recipes and Jamie's philosophies in the cookbook are still valid, but looking back it is interesting to remember that in so many ways he pioneered the idea of cooking being hip. No fuss, just fresh, pukka food, though there is no doubt about it, that he was also part of the Italian food obsession revolution. But who can blame him - the Italians know            how to eat.

I still follow Jamie's "Food Revolution" on Facebook, but it seems a little bit more like cooking and politics- a tad too serious. But then I guess, we all have to grow up sometime....