BBC Masterchef Professionals week 2: Can it get any tougher than this?

Week 2 and the Masterchef Professionals roller coaster of food continues. If I said I was surprised by the twists and turns, I'd be lying. Monday's ep we saw three chefs go forward when they were clearly all too good to drop ( see "It was the Salmon Mousse"). Monica did her thing and was more instructive in basic cooking skills in the space of 5 minutes than Nigella will ever be. Episodes five(5) and six(6) kept the tension going with just as many decisions that highlighted quality over the basic idea that this was some kind of race to the finish line. Anybody who thinks they can blag their way past the judges on Masterchef are soon put right and in at least one case, come crashing to earth with an audible thud.

So we start the action with round two of the Monica test, raviolis and tortellini. The method we are shown is simple and clear, so you would think professionals would breeze through this. But you'd be wrong. Jamie made bland thick pasta, Inverness Richard made sauce so runny and pasta so thick Monica made face like she'd been poisoned, Adam wasn't much better but Renaud ( Eric Cantona look alike) wowed with tasty perfect food. Monica who by now has earned a reputation for not pulling her punches, uttered the line of the series so far. After having tasted the truly vile pasta of contestant Richard, she told him "that tastes so bad, I want you to eat it". Suffice to say that Richard did not move on.

In the face to face with Michel Roux, a Salmon dish with veg and sauce is demonstrated. I'd like to say I've made this a thousand times, but it's never occurred to me to slice the skin off and finish it in the oven for a lovely crispy salty treat. This will of course be my trick to impress at the closest opportunity. On the back of the pasta test, I wasn't sure what to expect and it turns out I was right. Only Renaud produced a plate that tasted really good , but even he had a rough presentation. After all the bluster of Frenchness and "of course I'm goods", Renaud disappointed on a dish even I, with training, could pull off. Michel Roux was deeply disappointed by the round and Greg Wallace was underwhelmed. If you can now rewind yourself to Monday and the mass advance of three chefs, you can now see the shocking but justified culling of two chefs who weren't worthy to polish the silver at Michel Roux's restaurant.

And here we go again, this time Monica shows us how to make hollandaise sauce, peel a root vegetable and set aside in some prepared water. Simple? Well of course, you'd have to be stupid to mess it up. Wait  John, who crashed out on the hollandaise, made tubs of the stuff  not long ago, but got wrong in front of Monica. Poor sod. That left Ben , who is very good, Arun (pronounced aroon, not aaron) also good and Paul who butchered the root veg but still managed a passable hollandaise. I won't bore you with the details, but unless you get excited by men with whisks, it was time for a trip to the kitchen for food or go to the bathroom  for a quick refreshing..... glass of water. Bet you thought I was going to say something else  ANY road,

On to Chef Roux and Boules de Berlin, donuts to you, ponczki to me, with chocolate sauce. I was drooling before he finished saying Berlin and my wife had suddenly woken up from the hollandaise induced stupor. So we're told the secret to proper donuts is the correct rise and enough filling to know what's inside. Having made these more than a few times at home, we enjoyed this segment from the perspective of battle scarred veterans. And I'm not kidding about the scars. Word of advice, do not filter used hot oil while only wearing sponge bob silk pants. In fact wait till it's cooled and you've had more than 3 hours of sleep. So how did our boys do?  Ben's donuts were fun looking but not well filled, the dough however, was perfect, Aroon was stodgy and stunted but his fillings were good and lastly Paul , who was dropped, was neat, clean but stodgy and not risen enough.  I've come to the conclusion that sometimes you can't expect a sous chef or head chef to do puddings.

Nearly there readers, invention test time and we have in the kitchen Big Claire, Aroon, Nervous David, Confident Renaud, Cocky Kevin, and Nice guy Ben . I honestly tried to set aside my personal inclinations and wanted to judge the results fairly, but Durham David said things like hearty Northern food and lamb. How was I supposed to resist? Apparently as it turns out, easily, the lamb was chewy and the presentation rough. would he be good enough to stay out of the drop zone? Aroon's food was a ghastly combination that did not work well and made Michel Roux make faces I hadn't seen him pull before. The last four you would have expected a gargantuan battle of wills and palettes. What happened resembled more a sea battle with much smoke and noise that left only two standing. Claire who had done a canny rabbit dish and Cocky Kevin who was really good and only made a small mistake with a lemon,  knocked out Renaud whose food also didn't work at all, and Ben who murdered his plate with far too much lemon. So with results all over the map, all we knew was that Claire was a shoe in. In the end She was joined for the next round by David, Renaud and Cocky Kevin. Turns out the scruffy chewy lamb wasn't as bad as too much lemon and our Northern lad lives to fight another day.

And now the hour had come, our chefs had to impress the restaurant critics.

Renaud burned his beef a bit, why he went all moody was beyond me. The pudding was ruined by it's simplicity and too much pepper. He also told far too great a back story of the meat, he stopped just short of, as the critics said, telling us if it had liked Jedward. If it had, it deserved to be overcooked.

Wor David did Scotch eggs and haddock with black pudding followed by a venison main that got him the kinds of compliments you want from food critics. Talented chef and delicious food.

Claire's food was perfect but served COLD! Her pud was interesting but the foam layer collapsed. Claire has Michelin stars in her eyes but it looks like she's not quite there yet.

Last cook out was Cocky Kevin, and here comes the fall we were all looking forward to. His main of trout and mushy peas, was described as " A dumb blonde of a dish" a reason why " Presentation is never more important that flavour",  then his pud died an inglorious death. His chocolate was broken in several pieces his sugar was overheated, he had nothing to serve. I did however find his tears at the end, un professional, for a second I thought I was watching Hell's Kitchen USA. Had he maintained his composure he would still have gone out, but his reputation as a chef would not be in a million pieces.

Big drum roll ..... Claire and David  go through to the next round.   Cannot wait for Monday!

BBC's Whites skewers Heston and Ideal ends series 6

This weeks episode of  BBC2 programme Whites saw Alan Davies dive deeper into the tortured soul of Marco Pierre, I mean Roland White. The program opens with Caroline (Kathrine Parkinson) taking the mick out of chef for a dull predictable menu, but only after she draws Rolland out by pretending to change her bra. It doesn't help that Bib has already suggested spiny crab amongst other more adventurous fare. "Oh look, here comes Rolandosuarus with his boring food" .  Bib is entranced by thinly disguised celeb chef du jour Shay Marshal. As the story advances we find out Shay has to make chocolate bullets that really fire but don't harm anybody. So it's Heston Blumenthal and the frankenfood jokes keep coming from Jellied Eels the Shay way to something with gold leaf on it. Bib's desire to punch up the menu would go unfulfilled except Shay Marshall decides to drop in for a bite and sleep the night. Armed with sudden fear of being upstaged, Rolland allows Bib a shot at that night's service.  All goes well until Rolland takes charge of the celebrity chef's personal crab salad. You can see the disaster train coming from a mile away, but when it comes, it's still worth the wait. They say revenge is a plate best served cold, unless of course your victim was going to apologize all along. 

Some of the highlights include a brilliant exercise in futility between Bib and the thick as a brick waitress Kiki. They discuss at length the importance of Michelin stars, in what could only be described as G-d speaking to an ant about existential art. How this woman keeps her job is a mystery, perhaps one day we'll find she's Rolland's cousin and he was guilted into giving her a job by his Mam. Great  line of the night belongs to Rolland when he reacts to Bib's menu suggestion when he says "It's a menu? I thought it was a wizard's shopping list". Scoose gets a few shots in , but remains only a slightly annoying buzzing thing to be squashed.

If until now we had only seen Roland as a tired chef who might have got a bit lazy, tonight we saw the uglier side of him.  He is in fact deeply angry and resentful at Shay for something despicable he'd done years earlier. A normal person would not allow this to so completely warp one, but Roland forgets decorum, common sense, his own well being and the need to respect his own staff. The episodes finale is both well done and dark. Nice to see Matt King explore the darker aspects of the chef personality. Night Court and Fawlty Towers both did that with great effect. WARNING: There is vomiting, or maybe I'm lying.

Next week Scoose gets his chance at running the kitchen. Keep in mind sods law, the bigger the bell end the harder the fall, as we witnessed on Masterchef with super ego Kevin. BTW can anybody tell me who plays the excellent music at the start of Whites?

I must congratulate the scheduling boffins at the BBC for placing Whites right after Masterchef The Professionals. It makes sense, but that hasn't stopped loads of TV people from doing the exact opposite,  has it? Having Masterchef as the lead in is inspired genius, I only hope once Masterchef finishes, the BBC find a suitable replacement cookery programme to place before it. I strongly recommend you watch Behind the scenes with Matt King and of course there's more like this on the behind the scenes page at the BBC.

Sadly, Ideal on BBC3 had it's last episode for Series 6.  In it we see the rescue of Mos's father from the Low Clan. Filled with the usual insanity and surrealism, the cast deliver a finale worthy of Ashes to Ashes or Doctor Who. Hyperbole you say?   Hardly; after the successful rescue and arrests that followed, we are told that Mos will be alone after all next series. Yes I said next series. You don't think after that ending they'll leave us hanging? Johnny Vegas and company have to come back! We want to see what happens to Plastic Face, Cartoon Head's son, we want to know if Tilly the asexual lesbian will one day become bi-curious, we want to know if Mrs. low ever paid for her hedge trimmer.

Best line of the evening was Mos's reaction to the ransom drop instructions... "Chuck 30 grand in the bin? I'm not the Arts Council.", but only by a nose. The exchange between Mrs Low and her son about how and where to do the drop is something straight out of Python. The fancy dress party v the posh party at Tillies was every dull pretentious soiree I ever attended, contrasted by the most expensive collection of stand out costumes in one room not attended by Elton John. The maddest fancy dress  bit was the attempt to win back Psycho Paul at gun point, I can't remember the line but it left me stunned and amused. Catch up the series before it goes in the vault and you have to wait to buy the box set in a year like.

Tiny little nugget of news that floored me and left us wondering if any of my heroes or heroines are for real. The actress who plays Betty Driver off Coronation Street, Betty of Betty's Hot Pot.....doesn't even cook, and worse........She's a vegetarian. When will it end? Next they'll tell me Elton John is straight and lip synchs....

BBC 2 Whites, Alan Davies cooks up the laughs and Masterchef Pro

It was bound to happen, eventually they would commission a comedy about a restaurant that has more than just a passing resemblance to every kitchen we've seen in the last 5 years in cookery programmes from Masterchef to Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. As a bona fide cookery porn addict I was dead chuffed at the prospect of a show that recognizes that I am an important demographic.

Whites premier episode did not disappoint. It had in it two of my favourite people in the world, Alan Davies and the delectable as well as indispensable actress, Katherine Parkinson. The rest of the cast is rounded out by some well cast character actors who make the kitchen come to life. There is the inept Asian who cannot move without dropping things, the near pleading sous chef who spends most of the ep begging Chef Roland White for help during a gruelling service. He of course eventually gets it in the form of an overly ambitious little shit who will do anything he can to undermine his authority in the kitchen. Katherine Parkinson ( front of house) and the old dear who owns the haute cuisine eatery also compete with the sous chef for Alan Davies time.

Is Rolland White, Marco Pierre White? You tell me. Next week we are promised a new visiting celeb chef named Shay who is more than likely a combination of mostly Jamie Oliver and a few other people for extra seasoning. The cooking jokes are fine and the action moves in a natural rhythm that I recognize as a proper restaurant. It's not the IT Crowd or BBC3's Ideal, but then it's not supposed to be. It's a sitcom about a professional kitchen. I'm not sure what the ratings will be like long term, but I will be watching as long as they keep making them. Whites is made for the cookery crowd and thank you BBC for that. I get the jokes, I like the characters and I find the situations realistic as well as engaging. Alan Davies can speak and pretend to run the pass as well as any actual chef. According to my wife, who waited tables for a time, the ditzy waitress and some of the characters in the kitchen are so spot on it's spooky. Assuming he wants to, Davies can ride this one as long as he wants to. I suspect the audience for this is bigger than the legion of cookery nerds like me. I can see this being sold overseas to mainstream networks as well as cookery stations.Would I eat there? Yes of course, the food looks tasty, well presented and the kitchen is cleaner than the horror stories we've encountered on another network


Does Whites work as comedy if you ignore the fact it's about a restaurant? I like to think so, the chemistry between Parkinson and Davies as well as Davies and his sous chef  sparkles. The tension between the sous chef and his new mortal enemy is equally engaging. The comedy resides mostly in the sometimes exaggerated pomposity of celebrity chefs and real kitchen politics as a force that are well exploited by the writers. Even when you know a gag is coming, it still works, that is the sign of a well crafted bit of television.Whites seems destined to be part of our viewing menu for several series to come.In case you're wondering who plays the music in the Whites credits....look here as I've found the answer, even have the youtube link to listen.

On the same night we enjoyed Whites, Masterchef: The  Professionals was back for an hour this time. I was like a child in a sweet shop. If you add the previous night's 30 minute premier episode, we got to see 5 different recipes considered hard enough to test a pro. Except for the fried livers, I would have eaten every single dish from beginning to end. My personal favourite was the all sea food Sole and shrimp plate followed by the simple but tasty wild mushrooms with the chocolate tart for pudding. I promise to track down the recipes and post as many of them as I can here in later edits, but for now there is nothing online at the BBC food section connected to the programme.

Of the contestants so far, I think a few are capable of going all the way to the final, but we have the rest of the week to get through so I won't be choosing my picks to win just yet. The French born Thiery Henry look alike is promising though. I was a bit disappointed in the calibre of some of the hopefuls. Some  of them couldn't even truss a chicken or clean mushrooms properly. As always the two things that will get us to the final are presentation and palette. The judging panel of Michel Roux Jr and Gregg Wallace are joined by Michel's trusted sous chef Monica Galetti to grill and steam ( pardon the pun) alleged seasoned professionals. One of the best of the bunch was so unnerved his hands shook and the private cook to a "famous family" was just plain awful, having tried to poison Chef Galetti with her badly prepared gritty partly raw mushrooms.  I don't suppose she cooks for any noble house what with her bland seasoning and crust as underdone as what she attempted to serve Mr Pudding. I hate to imagine an army of  poisoners of Dibley lurking in posh kitchens all over the land, just waiting to kill us. I prefer to think that most of the chefs out there, genuinely do know what they are doing, but judging from the examples so far, there is nothing like years of practice to get it right. The contestants having cooked the least amount of time, even with the best raw talent, were not ready for this ordeal. Follow up ep blogged about here with appropriate hunger inducing language...

In the coming weeks, both Whites and Masterchef: The Professionals will  entertain and get the saliva going. It is my fervent hope to try most of the recipes AND not balloon into an immense fat freak. So I best get those nightly runs in. Remember, laughter is food for the soul and great food is one of the things that  make life worth living. If you can combine both, you have truly arrived in Heaven.

BBC2 Dive: A love story in two parts

I was alerted to this quiet gem in The Guardian earlier this evening. Dominic Savage explains how he got into the minds of teenagers to make this film. All very well intentioned and got me very curious as to what exactly he managed to extract from notoriously hard to  plumb beasts.

From the opening sequence through to the end of part one, the film draws a compelling picture of what it's like to live a divorce and have a dreams of your own. This girl who is already devoting more time to her sport than most people her age to anything at all , is further pushed into the regimen by a need to escape her home life. The intrusion of a personal life on the young athlete is further distraction that ultimately  pushes her even more into diving, and away from other people when she finds out her boyfriend isn't even sure he likes her.  Part one is filmed very clearly from Lindsey's point of view, hence the title, and conveys the solitary nature of this girl who has one ambition , and that is to make something of herself and leave behind the family she clearly thinks don't care much about her. Only her little brother seems to be in any way sympathetic, and that is not to say the adults are one dimensional cut outs to her fully fleshed out character.   Having been on both ends of the argument, first as a teen  then as an adult in a divorce, I can see how the story treats the words that are said with respect and shows volumes of emotion  through action and silence, far better than if the cast had spent the entire film shouting at each other like some OTT lorry drivers.

Teens are as a rule quiet things who speak sparingly while giving as little as possible away. Even when in groups they put on a face that still conceals who they really are.  Robert, the boyfriend, is barely old enough to know what he wants to do or when he needs to decide. He sharply contrasts the driven future Olympic hopeful who has  clocked over 10,000 hours of training , and she tells him so. He has to at least pretend he cares or risk loosing her for good. The usual complications arise and Lindsey is forced to choose London 2012 or giving up her dream.

It being a dour Northern drama with a cast we've all seen in similarly dark outings, I wasn't disappointed in the least bit. Life is not always the sunny side of the street and this film, so far has been authentic to the difficulty of keeping focussed when all around you is falling apart.   Well acted well cast, I particularly liked the little brother, he didn't get to say much, but when he did , it was worth the wait. . We'll be tuning in for the next part.  Not your overly preachy life lesson film that tries to teach you something. All it wants to do is understand these two young people. So far so good. BBC2 Dive