Jamie Olivers Ministry of Food

I watched the first programme of this very intriguing new series on TV last night, and think that if Jamie Oliver can pull this one off, he can hope to make a real difference to the health of the nation - of Britain that is - not sure if we can emulate it here in Ireland or not! The main thrust of the programme is to take an entire community (Rotherham in Yorkshire) and persuade them into healthier food habits -apparently Rotherham is high on the UK list for obesity, fast-food eaters and many other indicators of poor health habits.

His way of persuading people is to teach them to cook, using healthy ingredients, and then to get them to 'pass it on' to at least two friends. He has started with 8 people and by a pyramid arrangement is hoping that they will have 'passed it on' to enough people who will pass it on to enough people etc etc to do all of Rotherham within the period of the programme - which I think is a month of episodes! It is hard to know if the eating patterns in evidence would be the same here in Ireland, but certainly the direction is the same for many people. However, it was shocking that one 5 year old child had never had a meal cooked for her by her mother (who by the way came across as a highly intelligent, articulate young woman caught in a horrible poverty trap). In the first programme, the mother showed a great aptitude for cooking but her problems in making ends meet financially are causing her difficulties with being able to stay with the new way of doing things and also being able to pass it on to others. It'll be very interesting to see if Jamie can make it work...

By the way, the Ministry of Food title is a throw-back to the second world war where the Government in Britain had to get people to make do with what was available to them during the war period - I seem to remember hearing/reading that the British people were at their healthiest ever during that period (well, presumably those who werent killed in the war or had bombs fall on them!) which was a combination of an incredibly healthy diet and masses of exercise!

I have actually joined the Pass it On movement on the Minister of Food website - dont know if it'll catch on in Ireland, but we could certainly do with it! So, if anyone wants to be a part of my 'pass it on' group and you want to learn how to make one of Jamie's recipes, then get in touch with me... alternatively if you want to join and teach others then

the address is http://www.jamiesministryoffood.com/content/jo/home.html

More on the hot wok gas burner...

Well, it arrived and looked exactly like the picture on the web! However, it arrived with a propane connector, not a butane one, which was not what I expected. Much tooing and froing ensued between me, the UK supplier and the original manufacturers - and eventually, it appeared that we just needed to attach a butane regulator, which we duly did (well, my husband did!) and hey presto - it worked! Roll on Asian cookery demonstrations, and a renewed interest in wok-based cooking over the winter...

The wok burner would be a great option for someone who has an electric hob, but who likes to be able to cook food for which gas is the best option - Asian cooking being a prime example...

Thanks to Mark at The Cowshed in the UK, who helped sort out the problem www.thecowshed.biz

On Cookery classes, workshops, lessons and coaching

Do you know what you're looking for when you search on 'cookery classes, workshops, lessons, courses and coaching' or any combination of these? I did a search recently to see how to describe our cookery workshops (as I've decided to call them!) and came across all of these descriptions which essentially seem to be offering similar type services, but all trying to differentiate themselves from the others. Are potential customers bewildered, or is it a case of reading a bit more and then deciding which suits - which may be more of an issue around location or type of cooking being taught, rather than how the event (for want of a better word!) is perceived.

The Tasting Room philosophy is to make cooking, wine tasting and eating very informal and accessible, with small groups being the norm, and giving the occasion as much of a social dimension as a culinary one - believing as we do that people learn better when they are relaxed and open to conversation rather than when they feel uptight and constrained and under pressure. So, thats why we think that workshop describes what we do a bit more accurately than 'course' or 'class' although there is an appeal around the use of the word 'coaching' - or maybe 'mentoring' to get away from words starting with the letter 'C'! Any other suggestions?

Bread-making

I spent most of today doing a bread-making workshop with a small group of people (all female!). We had a great day - the sun was shining in through the conservatory roof, and it was warm enough for our bread dough to prove outside in the sun. We started the day with some coffee, fruit and my experimentation with a new health bread which I had baked the other day. The taste combination of spelt flour, honey, bananas, blueberries and nuts went down a treat, so I'll have to write up the recipe and publish it (contact me if you would like a sneak preview!).

After the bread and coffee, we got down to the real business of the day. We made up our dough for focaccia and set it aside to prove. We then moved onto the healthy wholemeal spelt bread with its linseeds and pumpkin seeds, and made scones and a loaf each. Then revisited the focaccia dough to give it its second stage - putting it back out in the sun for its second proving, while the scones were sampled, straight out of the oven, with some butter and homemade strawberry jam. The group got on really well - career advice was exchanged as well as many foodie conversations!

We finally made up the focaccia bread - keeping it classical with toppings of garlic, rosemary, olive oil and salt. All the breads were a great success - I'm not sure if that was down to the creative talents of the group, or my teaching ability, or maybe a combination of both! One of the group has promised to send me on the photo she took of the fruits of our labour - and when she does, I'll publish it to my blog... Hopefully everyone will try out the recipes at home and get to the stage where they'll be making bread without having to even think!

Buying a portable gas wok burner

It has been a bit of a saga - trying to buy a wok gas burner to be able to demonstrate Asian cuisine to small groups. Amazon threw up some options, but there didnt seem to be enough information to judge the quality of the offerings, and they dont deliver heavy items to Ireland. I tried a number of local catering supply companies - the only one of any significance wanted to charge me €1400 plus VAT for the privilege! I went back to the Web and went to a couple of the suppliers who sell through Amazon. The first of these didnt bother answering the query I sent to them (via a contact form on their website!) The second didnt respond to the email that I sent - and at this stage I was becoming more than slightly irate. Eventually a very nice man rang me from The Cow Shed - very promptly after my sending off my query! He answered all my questions knowledgably, and was very apologetic telling me that he would have to charge me £20 extra for delivery to Dublin... So, I'm now awaiting my snazzy looking 3.7kw portable gas 'Hot Wok' burner - apparently it has been shipped within 12 hours of me ordering it - hopefully it will do the trick nicely - time will tell...

Healthy eating...some renewed resolutions

There was a time when the only salt we knew (in Ireland anyway) was common table salt, and we added it to everything without pausing to think. Saxa 'fine flowing' was the one that most Irish people identified with. Then along came sea-salt and rock salt - and in fairness most of us ignored them as being awkward to use and didnt give the same saltiness.

Then came all the scares about salt and its impact on our health - mainly on blood-pressure, and many of us cut back or looked to use LoSalt or the like, with its lower sodium content (cant say that I ever liked any of these!). Now we can get Maldon and Sel de Guerande and other such salts, which are supposed to be actually good for us again - mainly due to the presence of sea minerals and some of the stuff that you get in seaweed (iodine, isnt it?).

If we move onto butter then - once again this was a great staple of the Irish diet - lashings of it on our spuds and our bread (that was in the days when most Irish mammies baked bread every day!). Then the margarine and other less natural products came on the scene (including the dreaded trans-fats!) and we were persuaded that they were much better for us than saturated fats such as butter... and so on through the various flavours of the month, as each manufacturer tried to persuade us that their product was good for our health - some by more honourable means than others (always check the background to any new health report to see who funded it!).

At this stage of the game, I'm taking my lead from a book that I've been reading recently - called the Mood Cure (by Julia Ross). She puts forward some great arguments for us using butter and olive oil as our staples for cooking and eating. I'm not going to go into her arguments here (buy the book if you are that interested - it is well worth it!), but what she said made a lot of sense to me, so I'm giving it a go for the next while...

Will I go on to low-carb vs high-carb diets, whether eggs reduce, increase or have no impact on cholesterol, is meat good for you or bad for you (and does it depend on whether it was raised on grass out in the field, or on grain indoors - and the answer seems to be - probably!). Is there no end to the confusion out there for those of us who want to eat the best possible diet for our health into the future??? The conclusions I've come to are:

I will use butter and or olive oil

I will eat all kinds of meat - variety and portion size are probably very important here as well

I will use only 'good salt' and limit the amount of it

I will minimise sugar, white flour and white rice and substitute brown versions in the flour and rice categories and nothing at all except maybe some honey for cooking with instead of sugar

I will eat lots and lots and lots of vegetables and salads - as many of them organic as I can manage

I will use garlic, ginger, chillies, spices and herbs for flavour and their health-giving qualities

I will cut down on caffeine (this is proving very difficult to give up altogether!)

Ditto for wine (trying to keep it for a treat at week-ends for a while)

I will get my carbohydrates from complex carb sources as far as possible

Fruit in moderation and on its own inbetween meals

Good vitamin, mineral and amino-acid supplements!

No problem...

PS: Just in case any of you interpret the photo in this blog entry as me tilting at windmills - the photo is actually of salt flats where they dry grey salt in Sicily!

Plans for the Autumn...

The plans for The Tasting Room for the next few months are coming together nicely. We will continue to run wine-tasting evenings for the corporate sector, and our 1-day wine courses. We are also planning to continue our cookery workshops, following on the success of our BBQ workshops which we ran over the summer (despite the awful rain!). One theme for the Autumn will be Asian cuisine, and the other will be quick-fix delicious mid-week suppers. As we limit our numbers to a maximum of ten, it means that everyone gets the chance to really get close to the action, and they get to taste everything that they see demonstrated. As they also get to hear about and taste wines that complement the food, it is a total experience. At our workshops, people get to ask any question they like, and if we dont have the answer there and then, we research it and tell people afterwards.

Some new services which we will be adding include wine-tasting evenings which will be ticket-based (we're finding it difficult to source suitable venues for this, which dont cost a fortune!) and a six-week wine course.