Bizarrely after watching Make Me Rich yesterday, I was straight over to South London to film Ready, Steady, Cook. It will be shown in March. Quite an experience, I was up against Jay Hunt, the lifestyle expert from BBC3 Shopaholics. We got to do a budget bag for £3.50.
Now let me tell you a secret (sssh). In the ‘celeb’ ones you don’t take the food yourself, but fill out a food questionnaire of likes and dislikes and they do it for you. With mine, though, they bought branded mushy peas – branded – I ask you MoneySavers….
However the chefs really have no clue about the ingredients before the show, and have to quickly think on their feet to decide the recipe. I was with the very funny Ross, and Jay was with Bryan. Sadly poor Ross was perplexed as my bag had peanuts in it and he’s allergic so we swapped it for half a cabbage. It was fascinating to watch him work out what to cook. I won’t tell you and spoil the show.
Then I stood there and assisted. Now I’m about as bad at cooking as I am good with money! Most of the time I felt more like I was in the way rather than helping, I even messed up opening the can of mushy peas! Though I did my ‘breadcrumbs’ well but forgot to put eggs in one of the things I was supposed to do. Yet don’t worry I learned the TV knack. Even if you’re standing like a sore thumb waiting to do what you’re told, if Ainsley comes over and the camera’s on, repeat what you’ve just done with an earnest look on your face!
The time clicks down so quickly it’s incredible. I was also staggered by the quality of the food. It was genuinely superb, and so cheap even though he did three courses. Really, really amazing stuff on such little, cheap ingredients!
There was another wee problem too (almost literally) having had a glass or two of champagne at the MMR party, then a glass of wine at the green room, I may have been a wee bit squiffy. As someone who never drinks midweek, I’m not exactly a big drinker, so hope I didn’t come across badly.
The programme ended (it’d be unfair to give the result away) and Jay and I scoffed the food in the green room, it was so good. We actually had a great chat, really good fun in there before going off home….
One final thing. You get to keep the apron, which I then got all the chefs to sign. I’ve signed it, as has Jay and now I’m going to flog it on eBay. Don’t worry though, all the proceeds are going to the site’s charities and it’ll be in next week’s tip 🙂
