Jamie Oliver; Ministry of Food

rosieben

Lots of cookery sites/books have lists of kit etc. and the Ministry of Food website has a 'kitchen basics' section, listing basic equipment which is quite good I think.

As for buying ingredients - if you try out one recipe a week, say, then buy the ingredients for that recipe and over a matter of weeks you'll find you've built up a good store cupboard of ingredients.

I agree Beccatje, he is doing a great job of bringing this to everyone's attention. :T

He did the same with school meals which I thought was a great achievement. I know its linked to his new book, but tbh there are far easier ways for him to earn money and produce/promote a book so he doesn't have to go stand on a football pitch and have insults hurled at him

Bunny200

I thought last nights programme was great, he really seemed to make progress, I was especially impressed with the miner who had never cooked before and now was inspired! And I was very touched by the mum (Natasha?) from last week who ended up taking the class. By showing faith in her I'm sure that boosted her self esteem in so many ways that she never though possible.

Next week will be really interesting with the consequences on the NHS from the obesity rise. Thats the thing to realise, healthy eating is important and available to everyone, its not a class issue, unfortunatley there are sections of society (that we've all discussed in the last week) that for many reason haven't have the education or exposure to the concept of healthy eating and for the last 20 years or so that hasn't worried us. Now we're hitting that crisis point where we need to engage those people and get them to realise how important it is for the future to eat healthily. I feel theres a lot of snobbery about food and recipes, although I adore JO and I have his books I usually find his food a little too posh/fancy/London(?) for my tastes but that doesn't stop me admiring what he tries to do, as I said before and others have said he doesn't need to be doing this, he could just chuck out a cookbook and we'd all buy it without putting himself out there for abuse and heartache by trying to help people. I think this solution will catch a lot of people especially as the recipes he seems to be doing now are nore 'normal', achieveable and attainable. By giving the power to people who often feel powerless to spread the word it stands a good chance to happening IF people can engage enough with it, and put themselves out there and contribute to society. We've seen so many changes to society in the last 50 years which has lead to much more isolated pockets of communities and the problem can sometimes be merging those pockets together. With the decrease in church attendance, out of town shopping and people working further away from where they live its harder to get community spirit moving again. We all have our little bubbles of communities and maybe we need to make them bigger to help each other and ourselves. I must admit I've been trying to think this week about how I could contribute to the movement and failed miserably!!! lol!

dianadors

Loved last nights episode - recognised lots of lads in the crowd at Milmoor from my kids school. I'm finding Julie a bit of a stirer - I hope she changes before the end of the series. I'm loving Natasha - (I want to adopt her!), and the pregnant girl and totally loving big Mick the Miner.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

That's not a problem at all in the long term because meal planning and bulk cooking is THE cheapest way of cooking - basically, anybody who can afford to eat and who owns a freezer can afford to bulk cook. The trouble is, getting started, especially with buying storecupboard ingredients, can add to the cost and mask the fact that longer-term there are going to be massive savings.

The other reason why the initial outlay for bulk cooking could be offputting is that in order to get a freezer full of a variety of meals you pretty much need to bulk cook every night for a week (unless you fancy making a week's worth of one dish and eating the same thing every day, which is enough to put anybody off!) so the cost of making that change all in one go could be prohibitive for somebody on a very limited income.

Having said that, it could all be done quite easily (financially speaking) for less than an £80-a-week takeaway bill :whistle:

I agree, to some extent. It is difficult, however, to make prescriptive solutions for any problem. In this case, local authority housing is only required to provide enough room in a kitchen for a standard size refrigerator and small cooker. They don't even legally have to provide space for a washing machine anywhere in a property. As such, many people can find themselves in a flat where they cannot fit a fridge freezer or chest freezer anywhere. In order to have a 'tabletop' freezer they would also have to have almost the same amount of space a fridgefreezer would take up to have somewhere to fit it. And it is not as easy as it used to be to find a refrigerator with an ice box for a reasonable price.

The people in the programme so far have been lucky enough to have houses and gardens - not all people on benefits are so fortunate. Perhaps the ones with the most disadvantages were unable to take part in the programme because their homes and kitchens were too small for the camera crew to film in. I know my place would have been far too small for them - you wouldn't be able to get JO in my kitchen at the same time as me without closing the door and breathing in hard!

It comes down to education, whether it is from parents or schools - everyone should be taught how to keep clean, how to shop and budget, how to prepare simple meals and how to launder clothes and keep the home hygienic. And how to think their way around a problem, such as how to get by without the space for a freezer or what to do when the only cooker you have is a 50cm one where a chicken won't fit into it whole. This applies to wealthy kids as well as poor, as they are just as likely to think potatoes come in packets ready peeled from Marks and Spencer's. If they then refuse to do it as adults, that's their decision (as long as there aren't children being affected, I think our involvement should end there).

But coming up with just one way of doing things is fraught with what-ifs and yes-buts, which where you get things like the old woman who fed the kids junk food just to spite the school dinners campaign instantly saying 'it won't work. It'll never work. Told you it won't work. Don't bother, it'll never work. They'll never eat it'.

I'm doing a sort of book for DD1 for when she goes to University in 3 years time. It's going to take time, but I think the Pocket Mum should help her in the end. If nothing else, she'll be able to win friends and influence people with the Killer Tomato Sauce!

mum_of_4

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I'm doing a sort of book for DD1 for when she goes to University in 3 years time. It's going to take time, but I think the Pocket Mum should help her in the end. If nothing else, she'll be able to win friends and influence people with the Killer Tomato Sauce!

My MIl did this for my 18year old BIL and it's worked he now does most of the cookin gin the student house. His friends pay him £10.00 a week and does all the shopping for the main meals (not breakfast or lunches they each have the own cupboard for that) he told me the other day that it doesn't cost him anything for his meals.

He's very popular

Bargain_Rzl

I agree with everything you've said, Jojo, but in the post of mine that you quoted you'll see that I did state that for the batch cooking thing to work effectively you'd have to have a freezer. Natasha does have a freezer. When she was showing Jamie the contents of her fridge on last week's show, it was part of one of those good-sized half-and-half upright fridge freezers.

I'm absolutely sure Natasha has the aptitude to run her household really effectively with the right guidance. I'm not generalising that it would be as easy for everybody, especially those with smaller facilities, but for Natasha, she's got all the raw materials there (both in terms of facilities and her natural aptitude) and seems to be taking to it very easily.

Cinny91

Just a thought for anyone with kids in primary school.
When I was in year 1 my mum came in and took small groups of us during the day into the (very underused) cooking room and taught us how to make pizzas, i think she made the dough for the bases at home and we worked from there. But I remember my mum went in and said she was willing to do it. We also had another parent come in and help us make buns. So it might be an idea to go in and offer yourself up to help!

rosieben

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

...
I'm doing a sort of book for DD1 for when she goes to University in 3 years time. It's going to take time, but I think the Pocket Mum should help her in the end. If nothing else, she'll be able to win friends and influence people with the Killer Tomato Sauce!

Absolutely brilliant idea! so many mums on here are teaching their kids about healthy eating and making their own meals, OS'ers are the best! :T

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

I agree with everything you've said, Jojo, but in the post of mine that you quoted you'll see that I did state that for the batch cooking thing to work effectively you'd have to have a freezer. Natasha does have a freezer. When she was showing Jamie the contents of her fridge on last week's show, it was part of one of those good-sized half-and-half upright fridge freezers.

.

Thanks for this, I noticed that it also contained Boddingtons in the top door too, which is the point at which I decided that we should be teaching people other skills, such as how to prioritise and get around problems rather than just worrying about cooking. I was talking about the challenges facing such a large number of people, rather than the one person. I wasn't having a go at you at all!

I also noticed that Natasha's house and children were absolutely spotlessly clean, which is something not everyone on the show appeared to do. If they don't know what boiling water looks like, how likely are they to really understand that if you mix some of that water with Stardrops or Zoflora, you can get all that scum off of your kitchen floor?

Once they know how to do something, it's up to them if they don't want to do it (assuming there are no children). But they can't truly choose to live in squalid bug hutches with malnutrition and fois gras under their ribs if it's all they have ever known, and there are large numbers of people who are in far worse conditions than any of those who appeared on the TV, who are the ones I was mostly thinking of.:o

moneysavinmonkey

dianadors wrote: »

I'm finding Julie a bit of a stirer - I hope she changes before the end of the series. Miner.

I'm really in a rage about that Julie woman.
Did she just invite herself along to the classes - it had already been discussed that she knew fine well how to cook so why was she there?? She just seemed to be hogging the limelight!

and the fact that after inviting herself into the classes she then starts stirring trouble up amongst everyone about new people coming to the classes and how that is not on? Why not???? As Jamie said it's his class!! I think he should have just asked Julie to leave when she started calling the shots and telling him who he should and shouldn't have in the cooking lessons. If anyone shouldn't be there it is her as she already knows how to cook, doesn't think the pass it on will work, and thinks the recipes are "crap" anyway!