Chic Cheese and Forgotten by Family

The guys at the pub were really sweet, they reckoned my recipe was too avant garde for those chefs, whose restaurants might suffer if they put forward too many trendy recipes. Quite a funny idea, but actually I think they were looking for quite homespun stuff. At least the audition made me get a haircut, sorely needed. I may still buy the ice cream machine as a consolation prize.Though there's not much space in my kitchen.

I was thinking about the audition which was the first one I have been to. I was chatting with some of the punters, and one had written a cookery book and failed to get it published after writing to every publisher in the country. She was told they only wanted cookery books from famous TV chefs, so she had paid to join some website which publicised all open auditions for any telly programme, i.e. extras, audience, etc. It seems she trawled about the place going to all these auditions in the hope of getting publicity to get the book published, and 'get on TV'. I had no idea people were so desperate to be on television.

No further word from my new-found (and lost again?) relatives. Wrote to Mykel and Roberto, but nothing further. I see Mykel's folk band has plenty of gigs coming up so he may be quite busy.

Boo Hoo - Didn't Get the Part!

Back from the audition. Actually it was quite fun. All those hopefuls standing and sitting around with their signature dishes, some giving out their recipes and publicity shots. One group with matching T shirts.

I sat around a lot and gave two brief interviews to camera before being ushered in to stand on a red cross and pitch (very briefly) to three celebrity chefs. John Burton Race was one, there was a dark bullet headed one who looked familiar, and Gilly Goolden in the middle. I briefly described the dish and showed my snaps. Gilly Goolden was good cop and liked it but the others said there were only two places, one in Spain (El Bulli?) where such things were done and they basically did not agree with mucking around with perfectly good Stilton. I think they could have been having a pop at Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck. So that was it.

As I walked out the camera crew were ready, in true reality TV style to ask how I felt, to which I replied that I was delighted as I would be able to stop fiddling around with Stilton and my only regret at not getting through was that I had no excuse to purchase an expensive ice cream machine to actually make the stuff. Mind you, if Ferran Adria and Heston Blumenthal had been selecting - who knows? I had no idea their food was so unpopular with some other chefs, since it obviously goes down well with punters. Maybe it is a cult thing.

The crew asked me if I would be willing to take part in any future TV cookery programmes and I agreed. I am not sure why, but I suppose it was quite amusing and an interesting experience. Oh dear, when the programme is aired, I will be portrayed as one of those mad loonies with hopeless dishes! Rather like the X-factor failures.

Cheese Dreams, Auditions and Stilton Ice Cream Again

Have been dreaming about Stilton ice cream and how to present it: with Stilton biscuits if I can make these - thin, using a small amount of oats added and Stilton as fat.Sort of stabbed on top of ice cream balls like wafers. Maybe surrounded by a very small amount of tomato coulis with added red wine or port or blueberries for colour contrast to the creamy greenish Stilton.

I could take some photographs to the audition next Saturday. I may have to invite Dorothy and Julian to dinner to sit around a table ostensibly having dinner and eating some for the camera ??? Anyway I need to take some snaps of the ice cream this weekend for them to be back in time.

The auditions are all day so it's no good making the actual ice cream. I don't think things will go any further than this as I am sure that my colleague and I are the joke candidates. Pity, because if I had had to actually make the stuff I would have had an excuse to buy a fancy ice cream maker.

Mothy has been reading this blog from New Zealand. I wish he had some bright ideas for my presentation. My sister Nibby did suggest I might try making it with sour cream as an experiment. Not that I have been able to find sour cream locally. May pop up to Borough Market today.

Stilton Ice Cream and Old Friends

Toothbrush has still not arrived.

I will go to Borough Market today and try and get some food for Sunday lunch, or at least order something which I can pick up tomorrow.

I was emailed by a television researcher who had read a forum post I sent about my Stilton ice cream, suggesting I might like to participate in a television programme and make my dish to present to some top chefs. There would be heats all around the country and there would then be an overall winner. The idea was to find people who had some wonderful signature dish and were undiscovered cooking heroes. I pointed out that though I felt I was the possible inventor of Stilton ice cream, it had since become an actual dish, not only for a starter, but apparently, with sugar, as a pudding which had been very popular for a small dairy who 'could not make enough of the stuff'. It seems that he was looking for weird and wonderful dishes which did not actually exist, so I suspect he might have a problem finding them, as almost everything has been done already. It was fun to imagine creating my dish, or any dish, on the telly though. Unfortunately my 'signature' dishes are very simple and un-English: Sauerkraut, and Couscous, so would not have done at all.

Last night I went to dinner to meet three ex Art college friends who I had not seen for several years. Everyone had been incredibly busy: one had just been to Paris to exhibitions, and was still doing artwork; one had been project managing an entire rebuild of the back of her Georgian house, creating a rental flat in the basement and the other friend was doing huge amounts of community work in a small village in the countryside in the north of England. We ate a super roast dinner of lamb shanks followed by chocolate cake and strawberries and cream, washed down with lots of red wine and followed by coffee and cognac. We took photographs, compared cameras, and swore we would all meet again soon, and not leave such a gap between meetings. I do hope we will.