Dietary recklessness

For the month of February I have decided to try and go vegetarian. Or rather, to eat no meat. I am unable to quite pinpoint what led me to make this monumental decision, although I can remember the circumstances of the day that I made it. I was flipping through the channels trying to avoid watching the commercial breaks (note to advertisers: advertising doesn't work) when I happened upon Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall making a delicious quiche with onions, cheese, greens and samphire.

I wanted to get on the outside of that. Quite why my brain took the immediate leap to trying to eat vegetarian for a month, I am not sure. However, I am a firm believer in listening to what your body tells you to do, figuring that it knows best. Perhaps there's 10lb of undigested red meat packed into my colon, desperately trying to get out. Perhaps all of that bullshit wasn't bullshit all along (it is).

Nevertheless, I am excited about it. For now, at least. I haven't eaten anything yet and I've barely even thought about steaks at all. I really enjoy cooking (plus I am awesome at it) and I think that it will make me a more creative cook. Having to think a little bit harder about meals will throw up new challenges and, hopefully, new solutions. I have only one rule: no "fake" meat. No veggie burgers, no veggie sausages, no vegetarian mince in a vegetarian lasagne. I want to see what I can do with vegetables and pulses and cheese and flour and eggs and you really don't need me to list all constituent vegetarian food types.

I have never been vegetarian before, unlike a lot of the people I know. I am very interested to see what effects it has on all manner of things, not least upon the volume and regularity of my farts. Will I crack? I hope not. Will my body thank me? I hope so. I will be trying to document some of the exciting things that happen throughout the month, even if it's just a slow descent into insanity or a series of numbers corresponding to increments on the Bristol Stool Scale.

New amazing blog: a dedicated home for Sad Clown, no less: http://sadclownillustration.blogspot.co.uk/

Let's dine

Those of you wondering what you might like for an evening repast today may like to take some inspiration from the 1976 book Chinese Cooking For All. This was either published by Octopus or written by an octopus, the book doesn't specify. Either way, there are some delicious oriental treats for everyone to enjoy. Observe:

Full of eastern promise

Everyone's favourite meat: live, angry, bull

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner?
CHINESE PARENT: Cauliflower.
CHINESE CHILD: What, again?

Radioactive clouds from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki continued
to affect Chinese pork farms for decades afterward

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner?
CHINESE PARENT: A bowl of diarrhoea.
CHINESE CHILD: CAN I HAVE BROCCOLI WITH IT?
CHINESE PARENT: Only if you finish your angry, glistening, sienna-coloured knackers.

CHINESE DINNER PARTY HOST: Under the "fleece" of deep-fried noodles is shit-braised lamb
and atomic carrots, oh wait, you've died.

Angry stools on a nest of uncooked noodles, with tapeworms

What lurks in the Yellow Sea and Pacific Ocean? No-one can say for sure, but it can't necessarily be killed by cooking alone.

Raw fish pickled in sherry with pineapple. Yummers.

CHINESE CHILD: What's for dinner? Lobster and beansprouts?

Dinner party treats. The Chinese like nothing more than a banquet, unless it's a banquet that glows orange with the energy of a thousand suns.

Almonds and celery, two noted tastes of Chinese cuisine

Glow in the dark, glow in the duck, glows coming out

Chinese people love eggs and vegetables, but being a mysterious and inscrutable bunch they don't like to give the West any idea as to why that might possibly be.

CHINESE DINNER PARTY HOST: How do you like your eggs?
CHINESE DINNER PARTY GUEST: Beige.

Omelettes in a rich tincture of ebola virus

Sweet and sour cabbage: beware of aeroplanes landing on your dinner

But Chinese food is not the one-trick pony that many people whose only experience of it is Western-style restaurants and takeaways think it is. There are also an array of alluring desserts and sweet treats to cap your evening and cleanse your palate.

Cubes of wobbly jellied almond milk with terrifyingly crystallised things

Eight treasures rice: the eighth treasure is AIDS

Coffee problems

There is a general tendency for any discourse taking place online to resolve in a reductio ad Hitlerum, leading to the evocation of Godwin's Law and the end of the discussion. So one must tread very carefully when making any form of broad, sweeping statements but coffee house baristas are the worst thing in history and should be rounded up and shot.

Oh OK, not the people themselves, who I am sure are all very nice and give money to the Dogs Trust and buy the Big Issue and worry about the environment. But the word needs to be expunged from the English language and the prevailing attitude that created it crushed like a BAG OF ADDERS.

A half-caf demi-frap caramel macchiato, please.
With a pube from your beard in it, yeah why not.

Self-aggrandising pricks are not a rare commodity in the United Kingdom, but until baristas came along they didn't have a union. There've always been people who gift themselves preposterously overblown titles for the job they do and there always will be, so I'm not quite sure why the concept of a barista so riles me. But it does, oh how it does.

We live in a society where people train for decades to earn the title "Doctor", and for even longer to become a specialist, at which point their title reverts to "Mr." or "Mrs.". So your GP is technically able to lord it up over your prostate specialist. Meanwhile, the muffin-shovelling beanlackey (GCSE Mathematics: "C" grade, 2006) who makes them both their morning cup o' mud is lording it up over everyone. What kind of example does this set for our children? Where will the dentists of the future be coming from, when high-fallutin' honorific titles can be yours simply by dint of a successful application to Beans Beans Beans? This is actually a particularly pressing concern, as I seem to have ground all my teeth down to a powder in a fit of uncontrollable rage.

But don't mistake this gibbering outburst of insanity to be one which is negative towards people who work in coffee shops. Theirs is a perfectly respectable job, as much as any other. And I'm sure that most of them wouldn't introduce themselves to you at a wedding by saying they are a barista. But I am equally sure that some of the bastards fucking would, and that's far too much to be able to stand.

The next step is surely to find a similarly vaunted moniker for the people who work in the kitchens at Burger King and Chicken Cottage. They, too, are providing comestible items that are uniquely different to the sort that you could make at home. Meatista? Chookista? Gristleshepherd?

It's a work in progress.

If you're still talking to me, maybe you might like to buy your Christmas cards from my Etsy Store this year? A percentage of at least some sales will almost certainly be heading a barista's way: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SadClownIllustration

My day in someone else's fake kitchen

I could literally watch the television channel Food Network UK all day. The reason I am able to make such a bold statement is that I have literally watched Food Network UK all day. It has crept onto the channels available on Freeview in the past year, first for only a few hours each evening and now, joyously, all day long. It is completely dominating my life and the people on it are filling my every thought.

As usual, I am probably reading too much into everything. There's certainly no need to try and impose some kind of narrative story onto these programmes, filled with hopes, dreams and broken promises. There's probably less CIA involvement than I am imagining. Far less lost love and bitterness. However, as the people who make cookery shows seem hell bent on turning them into aspirational vehicles to sell the virtues of the lifestyle of every new grub pedlar who appears on the TV, I think I'm probably justified in doing so nevertheless. Besides, who's to say that Nigella Lawson ISN'T building a jet camel?

As well as avidly watching some of the familiar names and faces who make daily appearances on the Food Network, I have also discovered three new TV cooks who have made me feel like a schmuck for missing out on their lives for so many years. Through gritted teeth, narrowed eyes and pursed anus, I watch them perform their culinary machinations and grow grimly, obsessively, fascinated by every part of their programmes and of their lives. By this stage, they can't even halve a lemon without me trying to figure out their voting intentions, judging by their words or mannerisms alone.

Guy Fieri is the smiley and ebullient face of the Food Network, albeit a face with an improbably distracting beard. He's a big name in US cookery shows, which makes it all the more unusual that he is so determined to pronounce it "Fietty" in spite of all evidence to the contrary. But for all his fame and success across the Atlantic, there's no ego here: Guy is perfectly happy to let his children, or his wife, or his parents, or his dogs join him on centre stage to make clams. This is unfortunate and one of those excellent, timely demonstrations of the importance of ego. Ego is unfairly maligned.

Guy Fieri: in Team Kale

Another thing that is unfairly maligned, in Guy's eyes at least, is kale. Does Guy ever love kale. Crispy kale. Boiled kale. Steamed kale. Baked kale. Sun-dried kale. Cannon-fired kale. I have never seen an episode of Guy's Big Bite or Guy's Big Bite: Backyard where his meal plan doesn't include at least one kale element. His devotion to kale is almost touching, until you remember that it's as likely as not the result of a deal with a major multinational kale concern. Kaleco Enterprises. A convoy of kale-packed 18-wheel lorries head towards his house every hour of the day or night containing all his gratis kale. His potassium levels must be such that his urine now reacts violently on contact with water. Kale, ladies and gentlemen.

I like Guy Fieri. I like his recipes and his general no-nonsense, flavour-first approach to cooking. I'm far less sold on Kelsey Nixon, the host of Kelsey's Essentials. In every episode of Kelsey's Essentials, our titular star - one of those people who seems to be simultaneously 8 years old and sixty - tells us all about the ESSENTIAL ingredients, tools and techniques that she has laying about her pretend kitchen. Kelsey was a front runner in a Food Network competition to find a new TV chef and so there's every chance that this programme represents the culmination of all her wildest dreams. This alone could express the slightly frenzied look in her eyes. She doesn't so much look at you as see all the cuts of meat marked on your body. Kelsey is magnificently excited to be cooking on television. It troubles me.

Kelsey Nixon: planning what to cook next

But it is at least a straightforward cookery show. Kelsey cooks. Kelsey eats. Kelsey goes home again. Barefoot Contessa is more like a magazine programme for a life you will never, ever have. Barefoot Contessa is presented by Ina Garten, the absurdly wealthy middle-aged wife of an absurdly wealthy unspecified business scion called Jeffrey. Ina lives in The Hamptons surrounded by frighteningly wealthy friends, many of whom pop by during the day to try out a new recipe, perhaps inspired by Ina's recent trip to HyperParis: the Paris that only rich people know about. Then she'll tootle off to a florists to give you some flower arranging tips, apropos of nothing, nothing at all.

Before you know it Ina (she introduces herself on her most recent programme, Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics, as "I'm the Barefoot Contessa", an act simply bound to earn a chorus of "no you're not" from my end) has been hanging around the kitchen of one of New York's most insanely exclusive restaurants shooting the shit with the head chef and is now back to finish the three course meal inspired by the time she went to space for Jeffrey's tea. Jeffrey looks like a man who'd be happy with sardines on toast and a wank, so a full banquet is always likely to go down well. Until, that is, he realises that all of this gourmet indulgence has come at the expense of that wank.

Ina Garten: considerably richer than you

The thing that really bothers me about Barefoot Contessa is the theme tune. Here is a show where wealthy people with dream lives cook delicious things for other wealthy people with dream lives. The music should just be the opening titles from Duck Tales with maniacal laughter and the unmistakable sounds of unfettered glee. Instead, it is an oddly-threatening electric piano doodle, replete with a building dramatic tension entirely absent from the programme, the food or Geoffrey's post-prandial shit, which comes out like a buttered adder.

I'm completely obsessed with Barefoot Contessa. For weeks I saw it coming up in the schedules and avoided it. More fool me. Ina Garten is a hero for our times.

The joy of sloths

There's a risk that this post may upset those readers amongst you who subscribe to creationist theories, as it is going to make continued references - both explicitly and implicitly - to the theory of evolution and the planet Earth being more than 4000 years old. Sorry about that, but it's arguable that you have bigger problems than just this blog post if that is the case. You maniac.

One of my very favourite things about being a human being is that you get to live on Earth and that means you are sharing the self same small celestial rock that used to be the home to dinosaurs and GIANT GROUND SLOTHS. There's very little that makes me happier than a sloth, and the idea of a giant ground sloth lumbering around the place is simply thrilling. These animals were the size of elephants, plodding around, being sloths. It's a buy one, get 99 free sloth extravaganza. Hitting the sloth coupon book hard.

A giant ground sloth, yesterday. Geologically speaking.

The joy of the giant ground sloth is only just beginning, though. There are two more cherries on this particular delicious fuzzy giant cake.

First is co-evolution. If you've ever eaten an avocado or a mango, you owe it all to these now extinct giant animals. Fruit plants propagate their species, of course, by having their seeds inside their edible fruit pods. Lovely hairy animals come along and wolf down the tasty goodness and then wander off to do a crappins. The seed is therefore spread far and wide and even has its own rich and fertile starter growbag of poo to help it along. But how do you spread your seed (hur hur) far and wide if it is the size of an avocado's or a mango's pit. You need an animal gigantic enough to swallow a your fruit whole (and with a bunghole big enough to plop out the seed hole, too).

The theory goes that this necessary interdependence has led to such evolutionary anachronisms. So, hats off to animals like the giant ground sloth. They did a lot of the leg work (and the bottom work), just for long enough for a Mexican to come along and discover the potency of guacamole, then start to cultivate their own avocados without needing a slotharse. Unfortunately for the sloth, this co-existence with early man is likely to have caused their ultimate extinction. Because, obviously, you can't eat guacamole on its own.

Secondly, Mapinguari. Yes, some people believe that the ground sloth is not extinct at all, and still yomps around the forests of South America, pooing avocado trees out of its bum. Now, it's easy to be cynical here:

"...as a 1937 report from central Brazil claimed a mapinguari had gone on a three-week rampage, killing over 100 cows and ripping out the tongues from their carcasses. However, in all accounts it did not eat humans, although when it smells the presence of people it stands up on its back feet, becoming as tall as two metres, a movement similar to grizzly bears."

Of course, the common sense explanation for this is it's more likely to be a rogue population of bears - a currently existent animal - rather than a hitherto undiscovered pocket of an animal unknown to science beyond the fossil record. Not to mention the likelihood of slothful behaviour from a slothlike creature - presumably a giant ground sloth would need lots of giant ground naps and therefore would be fairly easy to stumble upon in rainforest clearings. Surrounded by dead cows and avocado trees, I would expect.

But I'm not going to be the one to do a avocado poo on this parade. The joy of cryptozoology (which regular readers of my blog will know is a subject that fascinates and excites me in equal measure) is in the fun of speculation, of possibility and of the unknown.

So a salute to our ground sloth cousins. They crapped out avocados and the ones who live in Bolivia shriek like stuck pigs, stink the place out and have great long matted woolly tails. A salute, too, to their smaller modern day cousins, why not. They are awesome.

Have a banana

What I want to know is, what are the United Nations doing to protect people like me, who don't like bananas? We're a pitifully small number of people, easily the numerical equal of any distant jungle or island tribe whose ancient way of life is deemed worthy of preservation. But we're also far more geographically dissipated, meaning that interbreeding to pass on the vital Bananas Are Shite gene (it's recessive) is difficult.

Not liking bananas isn't like not liking olives or brussels sprouts. The poxy, stupid, yellow bastards are considered to be so universally adored that they pop up everywhere. Oh, have some banana bread. Here's a banana smoothie. Here's an ice cream with a banana in it. We've flavoured your arse medicine with banana, get stuck in. You people out there who love bananas have created a world in your own image, forcing the huddled minority to shuffle about in a netherworld, gasping for potassium.

I'm two in the hole, actually. I don't like mashed potato either. It's a texture thing fundamentally but also a little bit a taste thing. You know how people complain that children don't know where food comes from these days? Well, my problem is the opposite one. I have seen a potato. I know a potato's ways. It's a hard brown thing what's lighter inside innit. The incongruity of mashed potato jars horribly with me. Why should that thing, which could be mistaken for a rock or a particularly unlucky mole, be imbued with the virtue of CREAMINESS? Oh sweet heavens it gives me the limpies.

This is my Everest

It's not just mashed potato, it's any puréed thing which would otherwise be solid and lumpen if we'd just left it alone and stopped bullying it. The way I figure it is that a human being, if they are lucky, might get 60 years with functioning teeth. Come your dotage, you'll have ample opportunity to cram mush down your gummy maw. All the while, no doubt, thinking, "I wish I'd not wasted so many of my good toothy years sucking down celeriac purée when I could have been honking on pork scratchings and raw carrots".

And again, the mashed menace is so universally adored as to make me a cowed refugee in my own land. I accept every dinner invitation with such happiness and gratitude, only to start to wonder if Nemesis will be there awaiting me. Will I ever be set free? Should I try and learn to love mashed spuds? Why aren't they willing to meet me half way? I don't want potatoes and me to fight, we have such a long and happy history.

My message to you all today is one of tolerance and acceptance of the beliefs of others. And when catering, stick to food that everyone enjoys. Like rollmop herrings, or gherkins.

On breakfast

I am fat. Some of you will already know this. For others, I'm sorry to have to disabuse you of your notion of me as a bronzed Greek god. No. I am in fact fat. I have been fat (basically the same size as I am now) for over half my life now. I think it is pretty much my natural size. Pretty much, anyway. I am naturally stocky with broad shoulders. I'm sure if I ate less then there'd be fewer fat bits.

So maybe it's just that which makes me find cereal a singularly unsatisfying and unsatisfactory breakfast food? But perhaps not - when I threw this out as a discussion topic this morning on Twitter a number of incredibly NOT fat people agreed with me. It just doesn't fill that hole that needs filling between waking up and lunchtime. God knows I've tried virtually every type of cereal going and they all come up short.

Before I get angry emails and turds from Kellogg's (sorry other cereal makers, but you're just not as good, face facts), I should point out that I think cereal is very nice and as a snack food or a light teatime food it is very good. However, being asleep is the single longest time during a day that I go without eating (20 minutes) and those toasty bits of old whatever just aren't cutting the mustard.

So, as a public service, here's a list (LIST) of breakfast foods which I have found to be far more acceptable and (more importantly) do the job of filling you up until that hog roast you've promised yourself at lunchtime.

Pork pie

Simple and classic. There's nothing like a breakfast pork pie, there really isn't. I think this is something to do with its vast reserves of calories and fat, a combination simply bound to make you feel sprightly.

Kedgeree

Yes, let's take it OLD SCHOOL, Raj style. Rice! Smoked fish! Spices! Eggs! What more could you ever possibly want?

Massive fry up

Look, it's clichéd because it bloody well works.

Leftover takeaway/last night's dinner

Not Chinese, mind you, which tends to be full of cornflour or arrowroot and therefore have taken on many of the properties of The Blob, with the added bonus of making you bilious. Leftover curry, though, is the breakfast of champions whilst last night's pizza is the breakfast of kings.

Gin and tonic

Some people swear by beer in the morning, but they must be completely mad. Beer is an afternoon drink, unless you're babysitting. Gin and tonic is THE choice for the morning alcoholic.

Eggs

However you like them. Just get some eggs down you. The more the better. Try for a whole box.

Biscuits

Oh, now you're talking.

On biscuits

Hello loyal and long-suffering readers. Been a while, by my recent blogging output's ridiculously high standards, hasn't it? Of course, older readers will have been sagely nodding to themselves about my return to form. Anyway, life and stuff and things distracted me last week. However, hopefully this week I can get back on the rails - or back on my alarmingly large steed Megahorse - and give your already groaning RSS feed readers something else to blurt at you.

But to anyone who's been feeling worried and/or deprived by my absence (yeah, right) - I apologise. You could probably have followed my little breadcrumb trails around the internets, but of course the risk there is that they all lead to my gingerbread house.

And that leads me neatly on to the subject of biscuits. Rest assured that, even if I wasn't able to find time to blog I WAS able to find time to eat biscuits. I attribute my robust and manly 46-stone physique to biscuits. They are a constant companion in my life, be it at breakfast time, religious holidays or on train journeys.

What I am about to say may strike fear into your very bowels, but it's now less than 3 months until Christmas. If you don't see at least one biscuit selection tin over the festive season, then I think it's fair to say that you've managed to upset both Father Christmas AND the little baby Jesus over the past 12 months. They are a festive staple. I'll happily asset strip all of your selection tins, given half a chance. I'm a dangerous man to know, and not just because of my inevitably skyrocketing and near-volcanic cholesterol level. However, this year I thought I'd use my years of eating Cookie Monster under the fucking table for good as well as for frenzied, crumby, explosions of gluttony. But for that we're going to need A DIAGRAM.

Oh, here's one here. Pictured are many of the old familiar biscuits from selection tins. Firstly, these will be in your Normal Standard selection tin. The sort made by our most esteemed biscuit makers. Far be it from me to say which are the best, but it is Fox's. Cadbury's, too, usually produce on the big holiday biscuit stage, but they can't compete with the precision engineering and centuries of biscuit knowledge and experience of Fox's. Biscuits are an interesting food group, in that you only get what you pay for up to a certain point, and it's the point I've just mentioned. Beyond that you get all sort of luxury crap, with dried lingonberries and macadamia nuts and brandy snap biscuits dipped in yoghurt and ghastly things with chocolate on only one side. That's not for me.

Anyway, without further ado here's my insider guide to what to look out for when choosing your biscuit. (incidentally, I have not pictured any of the Viennese sandwich type biscuits, nor any of the cream sandwich biscuits. This is because by the time you reach the tin, I'll have already eaten them).

Biscuit 1 Caution is advised here. Note the thinness and the decoration. A sure sign this biscuit will be very plain and disappointing. Sidestep this one for the first pass.

Biscuit 2 You know when you go to the zoo? You go to see elephants, penguins, lions and tigers. But you know damn sure you'll be looking at a lot of zebras and nondescript African cattle as well. Biscuit 2 is the zebra of the biscuit tin. Filler. Some of them can be very nice, especially if it's got a shortbread centre. Increasingly, though, these are bafflingly crystalline in texture, or inexplicably and unnecessarily flavoured with raspberries. If you're chocolate-covering your biscuit, do us all a favour and keep the biscuit plain.

Biscuits 3 and 4 The unassuming stars of the tin. Look fairly unpromising but their chunky solidity is very telling of one key thing: high chocolate ratio. The risk with 4 is it might be slyly concealing a wafer, but a quick check for depth with your biscuit calipers should set your mind at rest.

Biscuit 5 Ah. Foil-wrapped. The loser's dream ticket. These biscuits are often chosen by the inexperienced or unwary biscuit eater. For the biscuit pro, I'm quite grateful. They lure the eye and the hand to a usually fairly disappointing thing which tastes of oranges a bit. And that's if you're LUCKY.

Biscuit 6 They're chocolate-covered finger shortbread biscuits! With three different coverings, milk, dark or white chocolate! Milk is best and will be eaten first, unless your biscuit eaters are highly foolish. Or you just offered the tin to an elephant and he's shovelling great trunkfuls in without really chewing.

Biscuit 7 Good shortbread.

Biscuit 8 Rubbish shortbread.

Biscuit 9 The Oblong Biscuit. It's sometimes foil-wrapped, it's sometimes not. Sometimes it's milk chocolate, or somethimes it's white. Either way, you know it's going to be wafer. And there's your guarantee of variable quality RIGHT THERE.

I hope this guide helps you make better choices come biscuit season this year. I would stress, though, that no selection tin I've encountered has yet been perfect. Indeed, until the selection tin is made up of the following, our search continues: Tunnock's Teacakes, Viennese chocolate sandwich biscuits, Biscuit 3 (above), Chocolate chip and hazelnut cookie, Party rings, my mum's homemade gingerbread men and the biscuits I ate on the train yesterday.

Make it happen, Biscuiteers!

Idiocy like this deserves to be rewarded

Or, indeed, Sony Awarded. I mentioned this week that on Monday my friends 5olly and Betsy and I had drunkenly (in 5olly and my case) and tolerantly (Betsy) recorded ourselves making green tomato chutney. Well, here it is in its full 73 minute glory.

Seventy-three minutes! Do yourself a favour and watch The Bride of Frankenstein instead. With the sound muted, listening to our Chutcast.

Chive Talkin' with 5olly and Ed (and Betsy)

On thoughts in their raw state

Out last night with some friends, so this morning I'm full of little kernels of ideas which could be worked up into something significant. I'm going to put them in list form for ease of digestion. They are only half-thought out, but that makes them a good 4-5% more thought out than a lot of my ideas.

1. They should give homeless people iPhones
I'm not entirely sure why as yet, but I'm pretty sure it's a solid idea. Obviously battery life is an issue, so I've come up with a solution for that too.

2. They should put USB ports in dogs and in postboxes
I think that would be good. As long as the dog didn't run away.

3. There should be an eating challenge in Preston Street, Brighton
Preston Street in Brighton is a remarkable place, funnelling down toward the sea near the West Pier. It is most notable for it's dazzling array of restaurants and takeaways. Most global cuisine is catered for. My idea is that, starting at the south end of the west side, you work your way up the street, eating one dish in every establishment. At the top you cross over and work your way back down. If you're not dead at the end you win a slap-up meal in The China Garden, the restaurant at the finishing post. And some insulin.

4. 5olly's idea
Last night my friend 5olly blew my mind by claiming that the only reason whales beach themselves is because of hydrophobia, brought on by rabies. This is easily the most brilliant idea I've ever heard and at the same time the stupidest. And I know a little something about stupid ideas.

On being a chef

I've had a lovely weekend so far, and there's technically still two days of it to go even if I now only have enough voice to last for an hour or two. Old friends and new friends have combined to make me feel like a very lucky man.

Today I want to consider THE CULINARY ARTS. I love to cook and I have to say that I'm pretty bloody good at it. But cooking is as far as it goes. I'm always fascinated by Masterchef's annual slew of contestants, swivel-eyed maniacs with no fingernails or eyebrows and a celeriac ricer in their hand luggage at all times. Cooking is THEIR PASSION. It's ALL THEY EVER THINK ABOUT. It's WHAT THEY WANT TO DO.

I understand most of that. Food is my passion. Eating is all I ever think about. Cooking became a necessary adjunct to that, and one which I found I had a natural flair for. In time it's become something from which I derive a great deal of pleasure as an activity in itself, particularly cooking for loved ones and watching them shovel it down and burp proudly at the end.

Why would anyone who feels that way want to muddy all that by trying to make a living out of it? The stress, the shouting, the heat? Where's the pleasure in anything you have to do at a certain time every day whether you feel like it or not? Even the most adept and exciting home cook sometimes just wants to watch ITV2 all night with a 6 pack of Wotsits and a bottle of Fanta.

So when people - usually family members - ask me if I'd ever considered becoming a chef, I can always tell them that yes I have and that's precisely why I don't try and do it. Because "being a chef" is a dream, not a reality. It's cookery shows and travel and book deals and celebrity friends. Its your own range of cookwear and a Bentley and a brassy wife. What people never mean are the people who work their way up through catering school and then spend a lifetime in hot kitchens being shouted at by gouty men who get all the credit for your hard work, before trying to open your own restaurant at age 38, bankruptcy, alcoholism, death.

Sometimes the hardest thing in life can be to just enjoy the simple things for what they are, and not try to embellish them at all. That's what I've been trying to master this weekend*.

* My book and accompanying 6-part BBC series about how I did it - set in my achingly trendy studio flat in Muswell Hill with an old record player in it and fashionably distressed walls - begins this autumn and is entitled, simply, "Shite".

Snack foods by Royal Appointment

Yesterday I got to thinking about whether or not the Royal Family would ever have eaten Monster Munch. I reached a worrying conclusion. I can't imagine any members of the Royal Family ever having eaten any maize-based snack treats.

I think that this is something of a problem for an institution that faces a continual struggle to remain relevant to modern Britain. If the Royal Family are flesh and blood like all of their subjects, there's no way on earth that they could resist Frazzles, Chipsticks or Wotsits. Their continual failure to do so seems to me to be a tacit admission on their part that they are different from, superior to, their subjects.

From the point of view of transparency, I should point out at this stage that I have no data to prove my thesis, only what I have observed and deduced. Here's a list of the key Royals with the snack foods I can honestly imagine them having ever eaten.

HRH Queen Elizabeth II

Mini-poppadums. Ready salted Kettle Chips.

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

Petit Mignons, onion flavour. But he didn't enjoy them.

HRH The Prince of Wales

Bombay mix.

HRH The Duchess of Cornwall

Snack-a-Jacks.

HRH The Duke of Cambridge

None.

HRH The Duchess of Cambridge

Twiglets.

HRH Prince Harry of Wales

The hero of the clan. All flavours of Walkers and Golden Wonder crisps, including any special charity edition flavours. Mini-poppadums. Chilli rice crackers. Monster Munch (all flavours). Space Invaders. Scampi Fries. Frazzles. Chipsticks. Wheat Crunchies (all flavours). Pringles. Square crisps. Discos. Tubes. Mini-Cheddars.

HRH The Duke of York

Cheese footballs.

HRH The Earl of Wessex

Ritz crackers.

I'm not a republican. But I feel that if the Royals continue to scorn us with their stand-offish refusal to eat crisps I probably will become one.

The Wartime Kitchen Garden

Lunchtime today brought a chance encounter with a programme which I used to watch in years gone by, a programme which had slipped my mind but that I had never forgotten - the BBC's magnificent 1993 series The Wartime Kitchen Garden. This show, probably best described as a drama-documentary, followed on from 1984's The Victorian Kitchen Garden and made for some of the most riveting factual viewing I've ever done.

By giving us a cast of people living and demonstrating the techniques discussed, the programme opens up a whole new human element, with all its attendant foibles and conflicts, that you'd never have expected from a programme which also teaches you so much.

Puddingy Ruth Mott, the head chef on the programme, may have had a rounded appearance, but she was a hard taskmaster, with matrician authoritativeness dripping from every gnarled pore. Much of the joy of the show for me was working out the exact dynamic of the "real-life" reconstructive elements. That is to say, I never quite worked out whether Ruth Mott:

1. was presenting the show from a historical perspective but in period dress, like someone who works in a bygones museum
2. was acting at being in the wartime period depicted in the show, or
3. was under the impression that the war had never finished, and was just continuing to live with its privations

Let's be honest here, my favoured option will always be 3, and this is how I chose to watch the series. This would make Ruth Mott the Home Counties' very own version of the legendary Japanese soldiers who, when found in the jungles of the Pacific rim thirty years after the cessation of hostilities, were still fighting the war until told to cease by their commanding officer, most probably by this point living in a rest home. Maybe she just didn't hear the all-clear, but right up until 1993, I like to think that Ruth Mott was collecting her postage stamp-sized piece of stewing beef, boiling it up with powdered egg, a pigs head and a hedgehog, and ducking under the table every time the church bells rang.

Of course, if this actually WERE the case, it would be one of the most notable televised examples of folie à deux ever transmitted, as both Mott and head gardener Harry Dodson were both possessed of a youthful wet-behind-the-ears assistant, learning the tricks and techniques to survive a period of history which had long since passed, quite unbeknownst to them.

Given the fact that they used to go out and then come back for a stew boiled like mad for an hour and then buried in mud for a week to complete its cooking, it's hard to know how they managed to keep up this delusion. Maybe they thought the rest of the people out in the town, in their Joe Bloggs t-shirts and without their gas masks, were just impossibly foolhardy. Either way, another part of the magic for me was the relationship between Mott and her helper, whose name escapes me.

In fact, it's probably fitting that it has, because so dominant is Mott in the partnership that the assistant having anything as presumptious as her OWN NAME would be grossly disrespectful of the elder party's seniority. However, in spite of Ruth Mott and Harry Dodson's vaunted positions coming about through respect for their knowledge and experience, you couldn't help feel a bit sorry for the assistants, forced to subsist on a diet exclusively made up of brawn and weeds, whilst being firmly but kindly instructed in exactly why they were a profligate buffoon.

Being an indoors type, Harry Dodson's gardening pieces could never hope to compete with Ruth Mott for my affections, although his level of expertise and the dynamic between himself and his helper was very much the same. Perhaps the thing that kept me most occupied by his segments of the programme was the fact that he reminded me a little of John Reginald Halliday Christie, and every time we cut back outside to the garden I expected to find him propping up the broad beans with a human thigh bone.

This kind of documentary series is fairly commonplace now, but these two examples were very much at the vanguard and, as is so often the case, remain amongst the finest of their type. The series is currently airing on Yesterday (or whatever the hell UKTV History is called this week) at 12 and 5 p.m., and is well worth checking out, even if you've seen them all before. Of course, if you haven't, I'm sure they're available to buy or illegally download, like you kids today are all doing.

My idea advent calendar, day 8

December 8th: Aluminium foil

Christmas is quite a foily time of the year, with many delicious foodstuffs which need to be baked in a hot oven with the modicum of protection afforded by a thin piece of metal. Indeed, so high is the demand for this miracle product, you may find yourself running out at a most inopportune moment. The solution to this is simple. Take a potato peeler and whittle some slices off a nearby car. This is particularly useful for thin foods, such as snakes or gizzards.

Vinegar review

Everyone loves vinegar, it is a savoury delight with almost three known uses. However, if you're like me, you will be baffled by the array of vinegars you can find in your local store's vinegar aisle. Further complicating matters, upmarket stores such as Oil & Vinegar sell speciality vinegars galore, when all a lot of us want is a cooling vinegary sip at the end of the day.

Continuing in this site's proud vein of public service, I have decided to review all the vinegars you may be confronted with in your daily life, so as to make at least one vital part of every day as trouble-free as possible.

Sarson's Malt Vinegar

The undisputed market leader for all your chip needs, Sarsons boast that 5.5 million litres of their vinegar is sloshed onto the nation's chips every year. How would it stand up to our three-point test, though?

THE CHIP TEST: Sarson's plays its trump card here. A fine chip vinegar, redolent with vinegar flavour and a vinegary nose. Our score: 10/10

THE SALAD DRESSING TEST: Malt vinegar is generally thought to be too full-bodied to make a good salad dressing, and this is no exception. Upon my Sarson's Vinaigrette making contact with my carefully prepared leafy salad, all the leaves melted down to a small pellet of cud. And then the bowl caught fire. 2/10

THE PINT OF VINEGAR TEST: Drinking a pint of Sarson's - long famous as part of the initiation ceremony for new cBeebies presenters - is an exciting experience, although not for the newcomer. The malty goodness warms the palate as the acetic acid works on your teeth. This superior flavour is particularly welcomed during the vomiting stage. 8/10

Our total for Sarson's: 20/30 a high watermark for its rivals.

NOTES: Sarson's also provide a light version of their vinegar, which fared a little worse on the chip test but a little better with the salad, plus being more forgiving for any freshman pint drinkers. Also in their range is a pickling-strength product. This absolutely marmalised the chips, atomised the salad and created a strong sense of malaise during the pint test.

Dufrais Wine Vinegar

A common sight on supermarket shelves, Dufrais lead the UK speciality vinegar market, shifting 1.5 million units per year. Most common are the white wine, red wine and cider varieties. So as to factor in all of their different qualities, we mixed them together in a big bucket.

CHIPS: A sophisticated and different twist, wicider vinegar on the chip provides a hearty fruit flavour and a growing sense of one's elevation up the class ladder. 5/10

SALAD: The speciality vinegar's trump card. A deliciously fragrant addition to a pile of old green bits. 10/10

PINT: The subtler flavour, compared to malt varieties, is initially welcomed by the careworn and bleeding palate, but the vomit from the wicider vinegar was particularly harsh and melted our toilet. 3/10

OVERALL: 18/30

Supermarket own-brands

For all of the choice of malt or fruit vinegars, one must also remember that for every name brand there will be another dozen supermarkets'-own varieties (I included the leftover vinegar from a chip shop's jar of pickled eggs within this test). Again, the mixing bucket came out for this one.

CHIP: Brutal 1/10

SALAD: Ruinous 2/10

PINT: Oh god 0/10

OVERALL: 3/30 - best avoided


Del Cristo Balsamic Vinegar

The king of the vinegars, Balsamic has undergone a huge growth in popularity in the past decade, with every household in the UK now owning at least 400 bottles. The range, as is so often the case, is enormous. For this test, we forewent the bucket and instead settled on the top of the range Del Cristo, retailing at £96.57 for 100 ml.

CHIP: A delightful, sweet and richly bodied sensation. Delicious. 10/10

SALAD: Another area in which balsamic vinegar excels, Del Cristo made a salad so good an angel proposed to me. 10/10

PINT: Although balsamic vinegar is a little thicker and sweeter than standard vinegars, a pint of Del Cristo (£548.77) slipped down a treat. Not only was the vomit limited to some spirited belching, the palate was suitably tickled by the sensation to suggest an accompaniment of some Nice 'n' Spicy Nik Naks, which made me puke like a horse. 9/10

OVERALL: 29/30 - a real winner

CONCLUSION: if you are looking for a really nice vinegar which is both flavoursome and versatile, look no further than Del Cristo Balsamic Vinegar!

Warning: do not attempt to drink a pint of vinegar without adult supervision.

Cat food - the verdict is finally in

This is Charlie. He is my cat. Charlie is 15 years old and, like anyone of his advanced years, has manky teeth. Last summer, the vet had to take half of them away.

Since then he's done battle with food, which is easily his favourite thing in the world regardless. He has suffered through sore mouth and sore gums, as well as putting us through that classic old feline standby, "I'm not eating that shit".

Quixotic even before this mouth jamboree went down, the past 8 months have seen us trying to strategically plan his meals to ensure he will eat his food. As such, I am now as expert as you can possibly be about cat food without eating the stuff. Although I did once eat a Whiskas kibble. Bone-shaped. Very bland. Don't judge me.

Anyway, here it is. Forget what the adverts tell you, this is now the final assessment of the cat food available in high-street stores across the land, written with the help of that festering, hairy, stinky tub of lard up there.

Whiskas

Very much still the market leader. Eight out of ten cats, they used to say, prefer it. Statistics prove nothing for individual cases, of course, so let's get down to brass tacks. The first thing to say about Whiskas is that it comes in a dizzying array of sizes, shapes, textures and flavours. The makers are clearly hyper-aware of their demographic, as cats are picky little bastards. So, let's break it down (with a fork):

Whiskas tins (chunks in jelly)
These vast monoliths were, until the invention of the tin opener, worshipped by primitive man. Upon the invention of that vital trinket, primitive man discovered they could feed the smelly innards to up to 40 billion cats per can. If you are a mad cat lady, big tins are probably the only economical solution. If you have only one cat, it had better be a lion.
Charlie's verdict: I don't like this. When it's fresh out of the tin it is not nice. After a while it is like bits of pencil eraser in a stinky brown puddle. Do not feed this to me.

Whiskas tins (pate-style)
Like the chunks, only a more homogenous mix, less prone to separating and making the world a more unpleasant place.
Charlie's verdict: I'm going out.

Whiskas sachets
The single-serve food in a handy pouch! A revolution in cat science. These come in a dazzling array, too. However, no cat enjoys them quite as much as the free sample pack we received from Whiskas. Seemingly identical to the ones in the shops, they were laced with some deliciousness which turned the domestic cat into a vacuum cleaner which later ones just don't seem to have.
Charlie's verdict: These are nice. I particularly like the chicken in jelly one and all of the country pate range except for beef flavour. Beef flavour is disgusting. If you try and feed me beef flavour I will 'accidentally' miss in the litter tray in protest. I also don't like the gravy range. Well, I like the gravy, but I'm damned if I'm going to eat the bits floating around in it. However, Whiskas oh-so-meaty is brilliant and I want to bathe in it. Top marks.

Felix

Cats like Felix, like Felix! So says the advert, featuring the cutesy prancing of a cat who is demonstrably an animated cartoon. Charlie is not like Felix. Charlie would like to eat Felix and chase it with some Felix. Accordingly, as he gets more elderly, curmudgeonly and creaky, he seems to like Felix less and less.

Felix tins (chunks in jelly)
Like Whiskas but spelt different.
Charlie's verdict: I don't like this. When it's fresh out of the tin it is not nice. After a while it is like bits of pencil eraser in a stinky brown puddle. Do not feed this to me.

Felix sachets
Similar to the Whiskas ones, but nevertheless different. Sadly, I could probably pick Felix out from a line-up of Whiskas.
Charlie's verdict: These are alright. Feed me these when I am not expecting it. Do not try and feed me these two meals in a row or I will stink and hair this joint up in protest.

Sheba

Named after the Roman goddess of flatulence, Sheba has always angled itself towards the luxury market. However, since the crazy influx of really high-end cat food into the market in recent years, it looks increasingly less specialised. The sort of food advertised with a sprig of parsley on the cat's plate.

Sheba trays
Individual serving packs with a peel-back foil lid. These are mostly pate-style (after all, this is a luxury product, ambassador), although some gravy variants do exist. The most commonly available flavours seem to be yellow, orange and green. Or whatever the meat equivalent is. These look and smell the same going in and coming out.
Charlie's verdict: I am a big fan of Sheba. They fit my luxurious lifestyle. My favourite flavour is yellow, which is handy because it is the easiest to find in shops. I AM TOLD. This morning I had an orange one, which was quite nice. But then I went out.

Shop own-brand

Generally speaking, I am a complete slave to advertising and mass marketing, so rarely get shop own-brand cat food. However, we once tried these in desperation and by god, it worked. The products in question here are all of the Sheba-me-do foil tray variety.

Co-op Gourmet
Ethically sustainable socialist Sheba variant. Similarly packaged, the contents are a little less sophisticated and, duly, a little cheaper. Cats have almost no discernment, though.
Charlie's verdict: These are nice. I like the fact they are soft. I do not like the fact that the most commonly served one (chicken and salmon, folks) has great chewy lumps of chicken gristle and big solid lumps of wooden stuff. What up with that shit?

Sainsbury's

Marks and Spencer
Charlie's verdict: Like Felix pouches, I will eat these if you surprise me with them, but not as a routine. I am not an animal.

Hi-Life

Hi-Life pride themselves on being full to the brim with MEAT or FISH, rather than carrot, ash and bogeys. As such, cats like them. Or that's the theory.

Hi-Life pouches
Like a tin of sardines after a nuclear war.
Charlie's verdict: These are sometimes OK. They are full of big lumps of real sardine! But I don't like sardine.

Hi-Life Petit Pate
Tiny cans of super-fine mush. Stinky meaty mush. Stinky meaty mush for cats.
Charlie's verdict: These are awesome. They have no lumps in and I can eat them without chewing. In days past I would have just eaten the tin whole and crapped out the label later.

The final reckoning

The ultimate desert island selection must surely be Whiskas oh-so-meaty (Chicken flavour), Sheba (Chicken and turkey) and Hi-Life Petit Pate (Chicken flavour). So why is he so picky about eating actual bloody chicken these days? My advice to you if you happen to find yourself on a desert island with my cat is to chuck him in the sea and be done with it.

Mints

I love mints. They are my favourite sweets. The other day I tried to imagine a world without mints and it was not a pleasant thought. I love mints so much I even buy the overpriced ones from WH Smiths at Brighton Station. The only mints I don't really like are Murray Mints. My favourite of all are Trebor Mint Imperials.

However, I particularly like Trebor Spearmint flavour Softmints at the moment. I've never fully understood why spearmint is represented as blue in confectionary circles, because spearmint is in fact green. Green and leafy. Spearmint softmints, though, come in a white and blue packet and the sweets are a lurid blue colour. I was disappointed that Trebor didn't also make the peppermint flavour softmints - which come in a predominantly green packet - bright green. I bought both, you see. For research purposes. Minty research.

That's really all I have to say on the subject, to be honest.

On cooks

This week, I have been watching Heston Blumenthal's three-hour long advert for Little Chef and enjoying it a lot. I like Heston. Channel 4 obviously like him too, as they have recently snaffled him up on a multi-year contract to make programmes for them, just as they did for Jamie Oliver. Their cookutainment line-up is now so formidable, it's hard to see anybody else even bother to try and seriously compete with it.

One could wonder exactly why Channel 4, who are currently feeling the financial pinch to such a degree that they are cutting down on in-house production of drama series to a skeleton of their most successful products and are also contemplating mergers, would be so keen to painstakingly build up this roster of A-grade TV chefs. Well, one could wonder that up to the point that they watch UKTV Food. Because it turns out, making cookery programmes on the telly is quite an artform in itself. As an aficionado of rubbish TV, I thought I'd introduce you to some of my favourites in the exciting, buttock-clenchingly awful TV cookery programmes genre.

Tamasin's Weekends (UKTV Food)

The epically terrifying Tamasin Day-Lewis takes us on a whistle stop tour of some of the dishes she would prepare for her braying, shooting the poor in the face, everyone on horseback, jodhpury upper-middle class leisure time. Often, Day-Lewis - who is the sister of Daniel, the actor - will rope in some of her friends to help. These friends, who are usually called Arabica, Fenella or Ribenica, are then put to some serious kitchen graft by the stern Tamasin, who has the look of Tracey Emin dressed as a scarecrow and you're unlikely to want to cross. She is also a keen proponent of locally-sourced and organic produce, so her programmes will often start with her chastisement of a greengrocer at a farmer's market. The man, normally 6'5", 28 stone and with facial tattoos, is left in the foetal position as Tamasin haggles over the price of rhubarb.

Paradise Kitchen (UKTV Food)

Far from Tamasin's well-appointed country kitchen, where a fox steams merrily away in the Aga, we go to Andalucia to meet up with Gioconda Scott. The doe-eyed Gioconda is probably too sweet and innocent to realise how annoying people speaking in English but then affecting Spanish pronunciation of local words can sometimes be. However, I imagine the majority of viewers - me included - are willing to forgive this on account of the fact that Scott is without serious parallel in the ranks of People Who Look Absolutely Terrified To Be On TV. With sunny Mediterranean skies glowing off the terracotta-lined terrace, with chorizo sausages playfully swinging in the breeze, with tapas dishes heaving with a bounty of just-cooked artichokes and pimenton, Scott smashes up another mortar-load of picada whilst looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Compelling television.

Sophie Grigson's Weekends (also Sophie Grigson's Sunshine Food; Grigson) (UKTV Food)

Much less laid-back than Tamasin's weekend plans, Grigson normally spends Saturdays and Sundays running around like a blue-arsed fly. This does not mean she doesn't have time to slap out some hearty tucker, though. Oh no. She's pretty good at what she does, too - coming from a family of cookery writers gives her a solid background of knowledge, and two decades of regular TV work has honed her camera skills. No, she makes this list because she is the most resolute, militant left-hander I have ever witnessed. Gordon Ramsay and Keith Floyd are both also left handers, but niether of them use the southpaw method of wielding a huge sharp knife. It's white-knuckle chopping of the highest order. I have to also point out at this juncture that I find the fact she looks like she was drawn by Matt Groening highly off-putting.

Rick Stein's Taste of the Sea (BBC)

The programme title which allowed a generation of wags to remark, "I've heard that rumour", the Stein genre is perhaps a surprising choice for here. However, whilst I think his culinary skills are beyond reproach and his Food Heroes project is admirable, he's still just not a natural on the telly. I find him to still be a bit twitchy and nervous, as perhaps evidenced by his legendary mandolin slip-up, easily the most stomach-churning real-life injury ever suffered on TV. I also found his habitual recourse to reading poetry made me hope he choked on a bone. Luckily, Rick's early career was helped along by his insane pet Jack Russell terrier, Chalky. Chalky helped take the pressure off of Rick, all sweaty palms and blue plasters, by biting a cameraman's arsehole or jumping in the sea. However, with Chalky now passed away, I await to see how it affect's Rick's confidence on camera. I would suggest he perhaps get a parrot* and wear it on his shoulder. But that's just me.

* Or a seagull, obviously. A dirty great herring gull.

My idea

Last night I was watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall do unspeakable things to a bull, and it reminded me of my fantastic idea. A restaurant called Vegetarian Meats. At my restaurant, all the meat dishes will be made from bits of animals I removed without causing their death. A pen of grotesque, limping, cobbled-together animals out the back of the kitchen will help prove to any nervous diners that their lifestyle choice will not be compromised by their delicious repast.

I forsee a pretty exciting and varied menu too, as there are lots of reasons to believe I could shave all manner of bits off before the critters stop moving. Extremities would, of course, be abundant, so I'd have to consult with Hugh about his most delicious recipes for ears, noses, testicles and tails. However, let's face it, it's also well-established that thanks to modern medical science, creatures can survive with missing internal organs or in the face of quite substantial tissue loss. All of my animals would be down to just the one kidney as a matter of course. But there are also all manner of other delicious cogs and wheels inside their juicy bodies that they could do without, I reckon.

Steaks and bacon, too, would be easy. In fact, my way is even better than the orthodoxy, because if you kill a cow to get a steak, the beef is finite. If, though, you just whack a slab off and then dab it with some Savlon, the steak will grow back in time giving you a huge beefy yield. This being the 21st Century, amputees will be afforded every right and dignity presented to the able-bodied. This means I can get two legs from a lamb before I have to get them one of those trolleys with back wheels so they can still get around (probably mostly running away from me, but who knows what they want to do? They will be free range, which is important).

By now, I'm sure you'll be very keen to invest in my idea. I admit that it is very much the future of ethical eating. Those who are serious about getting my plan to fruition are welcome to offer huge sums of money. I'll need a livestock fund, of course. But also important will be grazing land, restaurant premises and a way of insulating the sounds of the animals' screams away from the diners.