People say that they are “sad” to be leaving but “sad” is such an overused word. I am “sad” that my room is too messy for me to get from my bed to the door without me impaling my foot on some lethal pointy object. I am “sad” that the hit ITV3 program “River Monsters” was cruelly denied a second series. I am “sad” that my parents unreasonably refuse to budge on the “no mini-pig” policy. But “sad” to be leaving York? Doesn’t quite seem to cover it.

Actually, behind all the hysteria, which will undoubtedly reach fever pitch on the alcohol drenched fields of Big D, I’m not so much “sad” as “terrified”. I have nothing to reassure me that a year from now, I won’t be rocking backwards and forwards in the corner of my bedroom in Essex, foaming at the mouth and weirdly caressing photos of my housemates from first year Slag and Drag. I don’t think I will, but you never know…

I’m not going to pretend that York has vastly expanded my culinary horizons. It hasn’t. True, I did find out that people actually eat chips and gravy. Also, I feel that I can confidently rebuke the stereotype that Yorkshire portions are miserly having eaten the most obscene portions ever in Heslington’s lovely Deramore Arms. A sandwich that’s actually a baguette, an entire chicken, a jar of chutney, and enough chips to bury Ronald McDonald alive?! That’s not a sandwich, it’s a buffet on a plate…

Apart from that though, the food I’ve had here is basically the same. What I’m frightened of though, is that the perfect, wonderful and memorable situations where I’ve experienced food here, won’t ever exist ever again. Take the chicken spicy pizza, for example. Throughout the past three years, a Vikings Kitchen Spicy Chicken pizza has been mine and my housemate’s answer to all emotional trauma. Breakups, failed exams, death threats from musical agents and court injunctions, have all been solved by this excellently priced grease Frisbee. I have sobbed over one, I have fallen asleep in one, and I have pretended one was my face to cheer someone up. They don’t do pizza delivery anywhere near my sleepy little village at home. I don’t know what I’ll do without it.

Sure, I can cook myself a mega hangover breakfast at home. In fact, it’ll probably taste better. Nicer bacon, fresh bread rather than Hovis from the freezer, a plate that I know won’t have a crusty shard of noodle adhered to the bottom. But am I ever going to be this hungover again? Will I ever *sob* lose the desire to P-A-R-T-Y?! Will there ever be such ghostly faces in my lounge, muttering feeble encouragement as I grill, whilst they are too incapacitated to move and switch on Jeremy Kyle?

Perhaps. Some things for certain though, will never happen again. I don’t think I will ever witness another unique cheese fight/drunken brawl combination. Cheddar will always be an ineffective weapon. I don’t think I will ever cook a Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people dressed up as Sarah Palin while my friend cheerleads around me and squirts whipped cream in the air. I know I will never come downstairs to find a chunk of a freshly baked cake literally grabbed from its middle, and then have no option but to spend two days interviewing suspects and forcing them to provide alibis. These things will never happen again.

That’s not to say that I will never enjoy food again once I’ve passed the notorious A1 Adult Store, however. It will be nothing short of a joy, for example, to be able to open a fridge and find more than a scummy 2cm of Parmesan and 3 petit-filou’s 2 months past their sell-by date. It will be wonderful to use big plates, side plates, salad plates and bowls all at once, and not to tremble in fear of the consequential washing up. It will be comforting to be finally back together as a family, eating the most wonderful, delicious meals possible, cooked by someone who never manages to spend £113.50 on distracting items in Sainsbury’s, and yet still produce daily feasts that would make the Roux brother’s sob uncontrollably into each others arms.

Where will I actually be a year from now? 3 years, 5 years, well beyond a decade?! I have no idea. The food will perhaps be different. If I’ve got lucky, hot buttered lobster with champagne on ice and a breathtaking sea-view. If not so much, hopefully at least half a kit-kat chunky and a cup of tea. All I know is whatever I’m eating, I want the same people next to me.

Recently however, I seem to have had somewhat of a lapse. Since I finished my degree, I have gloated outrageously, hideously, and without restraint. I have literally laughed in people’s faces. I have asked pedantic and irritating questions that I well know the answer to. I have danced around the kitchen in my pants and played ‘WAG Anthems’ at obscure and insociable times, with max volume on my speakers. My respect for other people’s work ethic is, I would say, minimal at best. Its not that I think I’m going to do exceptionally well at my degree – I don’t. I just know that I have finished, and some people haven’t. Some people, when this is published on Wednesday, will be queuing outside the library at 9am and praying not to have to sit on a FatBoy beanbag. I won’t though, I’ll be asleep. I’ll get up later, have an elaborate and unnecessarily large breakfast like pancakes, maple syrup and bacon, and then get back into my unmade bed to play diner dash for another four to five hours and drink strawberry Frij. And that, my friends, is why I cannot help but be so repellently smug.

Those of you who are reading this though, are not revising. Therefore you too are a gloater like me, and we can gloat together. So, in culinary terms, here’s how to make the most of your new found freedom and your housemates irrepressible doom in the most irritating way possible.

Fry things. No one can really ignore a frier. The sound of vegetable oil firing off like an AK47 in the kitchen should be enough to disturb any hardened student, locked away in their bedroom. If not, the yelps of those foolish enough to enter in will surely do the trick, as they leap in extravagant and outlandish movements to avoid the pellets of boiling hot fat. Fry tempura, fry fish, fry chips or mars bars, but just remember that if it isn’t pinging against your ceiling, it’s not nearly lethal enough. For extreme frying and extra fun, pretend you are doing shot put: swing a slotted spoon of recently fried food and fat above your head, before suddenly releasing and watching its elegant and deadly flight elsewhere.

Space invasion. Nothing says “I’ve finished and you can’t ignore me” like an entire kitchen dripping with fresh pasta. Hang spaghetti from the most invasive places possible: other peoples clothes airers, a shower or your front door are all good starting points. Remember that everytime anyone has to move any of your cooking, they’ll get annoyed and will eventually have to ask why you did this. Then you can tell them that you’ve finished your degree. If you want you can combine it with some kind of YES! Airpunch or lower body thrust. Either way, you win.

Micro-wahey!-ve. Put something in your microwave and listen to the ping. Sounds almost exactly like “woop! I’ve finished!” doesn’t it? Microwaving anything and everything is a sure fire way to expressive your positive and upbeat mood, without actually saying anything annoying. Externally, you can say “oh yeah, your revision sounds really difficult, not long to go though, want me to test you?”, while all the while the microwave haunts “kachiiiing! I don’t care! In five mins I’ll be at the Designer Outlet wrist deep in Cadbury misshapes! Wooooop!”

1. The Exotic Lunch
Buying food on campus is expensive, and rubbish. Therefore if you must go, you must make your own lunch. “A sandwich?” you suggest. I laugh in your face. Sandwiches are for the dull and the mediocre. Did Oscar Wilde ever proclaim the merits of the “Big Fill”? Exactly. Successful people have exotic, exciting lunches that stimulate the mind and the senses. Think bento boxes. Think handmade sushi complete with intricately carved carrot ornaments. Think homemade lobster bisque made with homemade stock, served with a freshly baked, homemade roll. Spread it with home churned butter (shake cream in a jam jar…apparently) and then you’ll have the lunch of someone who deserves to be at university. If people challenge you, tell them that you’re just trying to embrace other cultures. Question why they themselves always eat white bread, arch an eyebrow, and try hard to look disappointed with them. They will not dare approach you again.

2. The Long Term Project
People admire persistence and stamina. That’s why you have to do stupid, crap things when you’re younger, like go to Brownies or be a Prefect whose sole job is to try and stop people from setting light to other peoples rucksacks (true story). Those things are good things because they show that you are committed to a cause. And being committed to something, especially something involving old people or children I think, is very good for your CV. Therefore no one can judge you for being committed to some kind of long term, coincidentally time intensive food project. For example, the vodka watermelon needs to be ‘fed’ with vodka every day, before its tasty demise in week 10. Christmas cakes too need to be pricked all over and ‘fed’ with sherry, or cheap sherrytypiestuff every single day. If you set up enough of these little projects, you will soon have a lovely, delicious, time consuming menagerie where you can happily while away the majority of the morning, before the good Jeremy Kyle comes on. If people ask you why, tell them that you’d really like to stop, but it would be a shame to now since you’ve been cultivating that special slow gin for two whole years…They will have to agree.

3. Feed The World
However hard you try, it is difficult to make cooking for one person last over three hours a day. People will soon see through your lazy, despicable ploy and frogmarch you back to the library. For some reason however there is a loophole, as feeding 20 or 30 people is suddenly seen not as excessive or moronic, but as worthy and even heroic. People are begrudgingly impressed with hilarious scale cooking, and as it obviously entails a LOT of hard work, no-one can mark you out as a slacker. Hold street parties. Invite extended family, and estranged relatives from all corners of the globe. Seek out large scale community projects and then repeatedly suggest a morale building barbeque consisting only of suckling piglets. They would be fools to refuse and once again you can sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that you have avoided another days hard graft. Do not be depressed when you get a 3rd. Rejoice. For you have beaten ‘the man’.

Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely enjoy watching people embarrass themselves. In fact until recently, I thought maybe there was nothing I liked more and I was getting a bit anxious about it. It is pretty perverse, after all. I’d sit up late into the night Youtubing gems like ‘Fail Blog’, ‘John Daker’ and ‘Scarlet Takes A Tumble’ (search it), snorting uninhibitedly replaying all the best bits. At this point I realize that that is a particularly unflattering image, and that maybe I should lie, take the moral high-ground, and make out like at 3am I fill out my beautifully scribed diary with a quill and ink. But that is just not true. I sit and eat Twiglets and laugh mercilessly at other people’s expense, like some tyrant of the Internet. And actually, so do you.

Oh yes, that’s right, remember those X Factor auditions you snickered at? You weren’t laughing at the incredible excess of pure British musical talent were you? No, you were rolfing all over Ken Lee and the Cheeky Girls, smirking (and I think reasonably so) and those who sought out fame and attention at any cost, despite being literally rubbish at singing.

But here’s the rub. They knew they were bad. I refuse to believe that no-one questioned Wagner, or dropped a fewww little hints to him, before he strode off gallantly, mike in hand. This cooking lady, however, was clearly very good indeed. She knew what she was talking about. Hell let’s be blunt, she’d clearly eaten a fair bit. There had obviously been whole hoards behind her, oohing and aaahing at her dumplings for years, prodding her with a rolling pin all the way to the Masterchef application form. In fact, I can’t even remember if there was anything wrong with what she cooked. And then, she had crumbled. Get it? No but seriously, it was well sad. It was like watching someone else’s mum cry because they overcooked your tea, and then just having to stand and watch them sob, staring at you for ten uncomfortable minutes.

And this, my friends, is the Curse of the X. This unstoppable trend started by the wonderful Simon Cowell, and perhaps helping along by Gordon “FUCK YOU” Ramsey, to make everything big and bad and tough. People can’t cook a custard now without being screamed at, ‘pushed to the edge’ and basically made to wet themselves with tension. It all seems a bit hysterical. In my mind cooking is about warmth, love, calmness, and understanding, sitting outside in the garden with a barbeque or a cuppa and a scone, none of this stress. So for now, I’m off to The Darling Buds of May and Wall-E, waiting for TV to become a bit nicer again.

But you should. Because in my opinion, Jack LaLanne ought to be everyone’s hero. Described as the ‘godfather of fitness’ on Wikipedia, he may seem an unlikely choice, especially seeing as I don’t really ‘do’ fitness as such. To me, people who claim that they ‘do’ fitness mainly do 6.30 wake ups, tofu and wheatgrass breakfasts, and tight, tight shorts. Sadly I don’t ‘do’ any of that. I do leisurely 12 o’clock risings, a full English or mug of Golden Nuggets in front of Judge Judy. ‘Fitness’ seems rude, abrupt and alarming. ‘Fitness’ conjures up an army sergeant screaming ‘DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME TWENTY!’ to a girl who has only recently mastered the gentle balance games of the Wii Fit.

And yet just like Kate Winslet on Titanic, Jack stole my heart. “Overweight? Tired? lacking energy?” his shopping channel asked a woefully hungover 15 year old. ‘Mmm’ I slurred in the affirmative. But Jack had my back. His ‘Jack LaLanne Powerjuicer’ was apparently all I needed to convert me from a zombified albino teen, to a bronzed Californian beach babe with exotically glowing skin and a stomach like a snare drum. “Change your life, save your life” urged 80 year old Jack enthusiastically, adding “You’re the most important person you have, if you don’t do it who will?”. He was so right: if all the vitamins in a beige, foamy juice couldn’t save me, what hope was there left? He was like the dalai lama of the shopping channel, and since that moment I hung on his every word. He wasn’t like the beardy women on the Nads waxing channel, or the glib, orange salesmen on PriceDrop TV. Jack was trying to save me from myself. I trusted Jack. And so I bought it. Both the philosophy, and the juicer.

Admittedly the juicer was a little bit disappointing. Yes, it juiced whole fruits without the awkwardness of peeling, chopping, or moving my wrist. And yes, I could probably have used the left over ‘dry’ juice pulp to make many items such as ‘salsa!’ had I not had any money, or any other food left in the world. The fact remains however: the ‘Jack LaLanne Powerjuicer’ creates an unfortunate, fruity cappuccino type juice, with foam floating on the surface. I’m not bitter, but all I’ll say is that you never see the Tropicana businessmen wiping away a tangerine tash inbetween their bites of eggs benedict Arnold, do you? Exactly.

However, Jack’s philosophy remains inspiring. One of the most quoted Californian pensioners, his opinion on anything is golddust. “Would you get your dog up in the morning for a cup of coffee and a donut?” he asks. “Probably millions of Americans got up this morning with a cup of coffee, a cigarette and a donut. No wonder they are sick and fouled up.” Clearly, the man speaks sense. Or take his theory on warming up before exercise. “15 minutes to warm up? Does a lion warm up when he’s hungry? ‘Uh oh, here comes an antelope. Better warm up.’ No! He just goes out there and eats the sucker.”

So, whilst I’m hesitant to shell out for more of Jack’s dubious kitchen gadgetry, his outlook on life is worth it. He was a man who shunned convention, bucked the trend, a rare case of someone who lived their life how they actually wanted to. Now as it happens that was freakishly healthily, but I’m not for a moment pretending that I’m about to live off egg whites and raw vegetables in the hope that I, like Jack, will be able to shackle myself to 70 boats, and tow them 1.5 miles at the age of 70. That’s literally mental. Who would do that? But seriously, what I think is worth learning from Jack is that there isn’t just one way to exist, one path for everybody. ‘I don’t want to die’ Jack is reported to have said, ‘it will ruin my image’. Well sadly, after 97 years of juicing and pumping iron, he has. But I for one will be thinking of him next time I down a ‘Green Magic’, desperately in search of something to cancel out the Pear VKs from the night before…

In this respect, it seems virtually impossible to create a hard-hitting, cutting edge, ‘save the fish’ campaign, which could rock the very core of a nation famed for its resolute dedication to the ‘turkey twizzler’. Fish don’t look cute on posters. Panda’s are a much easier ride.

But yet, as I’m sure anyone that’s managed to catch Channel 4’s recent ‘Big Fish Fight’ will have noticed, there seems to be a success story in the making. Since the first program last week, the petition numbers on www.fishfight.net have shot up incredibly. Sadly I can’t actually find out by how much. But I promise it’s loads, I’ve been watching it every day…

Clearly the likes of Hugh, Jamie and Gordon have managed, at first glance anyway, to woo the hearts of mouse-potatoes across the country, and in my opinion that can only be a good thing. Nevertheless it begs an interesting question: can celebrity chefs really change the buying habits of an entire nation?

At first it sounds like a bit of a no-brainer. After all, how many people can say with 100% certitude that they’re immune to the lure of celebrity? On paper, it should be a formula for instant success. And yet food seems to be one of those few things we aren’t prepared to be flippant with. Bill Bryson once astutely remarked that the British are prepared to experiment with their food to a certain extent, but “don’t fuck with their puddings”. That’s blates true. “They can take our lives but they’ll never take our trifle” etc. etc.

With this in mind, Hugh Fernley Whittingstall’s little mackerel baps sadly seem a bit limp and pathetic. Can a few famous faces and a week’s worth of fishy fun really persuade us to abandon over two centuries of cod and chips? At the end of the day, it remains to be seen. Politicians aren’t hugely known for their incredible power to listen, so supporters shouldn’t put too much emphasis on Hugh’s petition to the MEPs. Public spending though, remains powerful. Turn the hearts and minds of the British people onto dab and pollock (not the sexiest sounding fish it has to be said…) and you’re onto a winner.

And so for now, we wait. In the meantime though, it’s reasonably titter-worthy to examine the contributions of various celebs or wannabe fishstars. Gordon Ramsey has to be Exhibit A. Because *shockingly*, whilst Hugh has galliantly been flashing his nether regions into the icy Northern spray and Jamie is feverously peddling his dishes like Alan Sugar dahn the market, Gords is going to wrestle sharks. No seriously, that is actually what he’s doing… to help the depletion of cod, tuna and salmon… Que?! Don’t worry, you’re not the only one whose confused.com. But there’s no fun in wrestling sardines you see. With sharks though, well, the worlds your oyster! In fact, the opportunities for tight t-shirts, American Wife Swap storm offs and testosterone fuelled antics of every kind are rife with Jaws, and this campaign has at least exposed what’s most important to the Big G once and for all – showing off his massive guns.

In fact, as the campaign is gathering steam, more and more C listers have seen fit to tweet their pearls of wisdom. For now they make a bit of sense, but keep your eyes peeled people and your fingers crossed, things are about to get ugly… Personally I’d like to know what Jeremy Kyle, Kanye West and Mel Gibson think about all this, but that’s just me… For the more dedicated among you I’d recommend stalking York’s very own Callum Roberts, or perhaps less illegally Charles Clover’s fantastic book The End of The Line… at least he’s not always going on about his mussels…

So while I am doodling birds Eskimo-kissing on my notes for a Cinderella seminar (this is embarrassingly true…), you may well think that you are above all this. Until I tell you that Kate and Wills’ big day is predicted to boost the food and grocery industry by £360million. Ha. Bet you aren’t scoffing into your £5 Asda coronation mug quite so much now. Can you believe that they’re already out?….

The Telegraph article I got that statistic from also states that the wedding will boost the entire economy by £620m, tactfully envisaging that the nation will be rushing out to bulk buy such highbrow items as ‘Champagne’ and ‘wine’. I’m amused to see they have also added in ‘extra treats’, which I take it is their way of factoring in the thousands of packets of ‘yum-yum’s’ and cheese footballs which will surely be gracing the nations doilies too…

And if we’re honest, it is the food we really care about. Google is full of people piffling on about who should design Kate’s wedding dress and “what is the most divine flower in all of nature?”, but what people really want to know, as always, is what they’re having for tea.

Well, Charles and Diana’s wedding menu was the peak of 80’s sophistication – Brill in lobster sauce, chicken breasts garnished with lamb mousse, strawberries with clotted cream and a five-tiered Belgian monster cake. It’s a far cry from a slice of flaccid quiche and some sweaty looking salad, and people are naturally predicting something equally decadent for next year’s event.

But this is where I’d like to go against the grain a little (get it?!). In my opinion, people seem to automatically assume that posh people = posh nosh. Many a time the holy trinity of food critics on the ‘Great British Menu’ have dispatched what look like perfectly tasty little snackettes with a single phrase of death and an artfully cocked eyebrow: “but would you be happy to serve this to Your Royal Highness, THE PRINCE OF WALES?”.

Nowadays it seems that if food doesn’t come in tiers, resemble a high level of tetris or have some other kind of nerve-wracking structural complication, then it isn’t fit for a Queen. The days when chefs are required to make a tower of soup as in Black Books (“where are the turrets?!”), seem worryingly close.

This is odd to me. For one thing the Royal Family, I believe, are more than accustomed to this kind of overly-groped food. It is their every day food, their fish finger buttie equivalent if you will. For another, the Royals have frequently let slip that they actually LIKE the normal, peasanty things that us mortals lust after too. The Queen asked for a Billie The Bass one Christmas and apparently eats ‘tarte tatin with brandy crème’ on December 24th – now if that isn’t code for apple pie and custard I don’t know what is…

So wouldn’t it be refreshing if William and Kate just ask for what they actually want to eat this time round? Now if that’s ‘Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast’ a la Heston then so be it, but I bet you it isn’t. And isn’t all this ‘pretending’ where so many relationships go wrong from the start? One of Kate Middleton’s earliest memories is apparently her bunny shaped birthday cake when she was seven. Now wouldn’t something as symbolic and simple as that be more special than yet another 50 tiered bad boy?! Obviously I’m being ridiculous now – brave is the chef that puts a calippo in front of Her Majesty. But I do think it’s worth remembering in amongst all this hysteria that whatever people say, taste doesn’t change with class.

According to that most trustworthy of publications, the Mirror, gung-ho Gaz is said to have brought: “a can of lager, some chicken, a mobile phone and something to keep warm” with him to gunman Raoul Moat. I find three out of four of these items reasonable wrisible, especially the lager. If there’s one thing a mentally unstable gunman on the loose probably doesn’t need, I’d assume it’s a cheeky pint and a packet of pork scratchings.
Anyway, my point is that whilst much of Gazza’s well-intentioned, super special rescue kit seems a little suspect, the chicken, I would argue, was spot on. Now sadly the Mirror has been a tad miserly on the details here, and us readers are left in suspense – no-one knows if the chicken was fried, battered, mousselined or fricasseed (I assume the first, if only for ease when travelling), but it is of no importance. Gazza’s paltry snack offering (get it?!), was spot on.

Food has, and always will be, a tremendous bridge builder. I’ve read numerous saucy articles recently (get it again?!), preaching the virtues of melted praline in hard to reach crevices, and to quote a 90 year old woman from my post office the other day “I’m fed up of reading about food and sex!”. While it’s a topic worthy of discussion (see previous post Sex and Souffle for more…), I’d say that the main reason I love food, is that it transcends all that for something more useful, and maybe important.

For example ever been on, or had, a really bad French exchange? You know the kind, the one where your petit ami turns out to be into piercings, sulking and keeping out of direct sunlight, and you’re starting to wonder whether hitchhiking back from the Dordoigne would be safer than staying with the host family’s cross-eyed dad for another 10 days? In these kinds of grim situation, food is more than a staple, but a saviour.

Oui mes enfants, sharing the last, squished pain au chocolat with Clement or Laeticia often says more than “ou est le piscine?” or “j’aime bien le discotheque” ever could. Indeed, I’d even go so far as to venture that sucking up some mouth-watering, delicious spaghetti from a shared plate Lady and The Tramp stylie, can be infinitely preferable to either the awkward-turtle silence, or hysterical ramblings of many a mis-matched dinner companion.

I could easily go on about this forever, coming from a family which views food as literally the cure for everything (luckily no-one in our house is, as yet, obese). I will forever be known to my housemates as the girl who was unable to offer any words of comfort at all to my sobbing, emotionally traumatized chum in first-year, and instead proffered a cheesecake a timely two hours later. And I’m happy to say that it worked. As did the three chicken spicy Efes on several other upsetting evenings.

With this in mind, I really do think Gazza was on to something, something that maybe deserves a lot more serious consideration than given here. Whilst I’m sure that we’ve all turned to food for comfort at least once in our lives, the ability of it to join and connect people from different backgrounds, races or religions is extraordinary, and not something which I think is truly appreciated yet by the British. With that in mind, I’m off to offer my dad a pint and a bowl of Kettle Chips, because I shouted at him earlier for scratching my car. He took the paint off and everything…

*By the way, my dad has read over my shoulder and piped up that that joke doesn’t work at all, as apparently Terry Wogan is also quite good at football. As I don’t know many other footballers, and the ones I do know I can’t think of funny jokes (less Ashley Cole more Cheryl etc.) I’m just going to pretend he never said anything and stride on regardless.

“Em, what do you reckon of me being vegetarian?” I proffered to a housemate, in a dressing gown clad bathroom changing of the guard. “Stupid idea” “Why?” “All vegetarians are dull….except Flick’s mum” (I should point out here that Flick is another of my housemates, whose bedroom is but 2 meters to the left of our hallway exchange). “Anna’s vegetarian though?” “Oh yeah” At this point I was really quite keen to form a list of all the vegetarians I know, starting an in depth and passionate debate on how diet affects one’s mental dexterity, complete with pie charts and PowerPoint slideshows, and some form of large pointy stick of the sort had by severe headmasters. Sadly, my housemate quickly shuffled back to her den, and with the threat of provoking someone to “chunder everywah” (this phrase is getting a bit overused, but trust me it’s appropriate here), I decided it was best to let it lie and continue the conversation in my head.

Therefore with no further awake people/lifestyle guru (seriously, aren’t they the most hilarious things ever?! Who would pay for someone to tell you how to live your life?!), I have decided to DO IT.
I am also going to list my carefully thought out ‘pro’s’ and ‘con’s’, so that when I’m crying over a limp, flaccid piece of Facon, or whatever it is that vegetarian’s eat, I will be able to console myself either with the aims of my project, or with my accurate foresight.

PRO’s:

1) Tastebuds. While I am to list numerous frivolous and wrisable pro’s below, this is the main aim of my project, in all seriousness. After a year of feasting on the delights of The Deramore, I fear that my dinky tastebuds have developed a sort of furry little meat blanket. Coated with a duvet of steak au poivre, I’m concerned that flavors just aren’t getting to me anymore. It’s often been proclaimed that vegetarians have a keener sense of taste then those of the “miiixed gerill madame?!” mentality, and my nightmarish experience at Goji has only reinforced this. Seriously, never before have I eaten so much food that tasted of air. Either the food there really is crap, or I am a moron and deserve to be beaten about the head with a butternut squash. In which case, I will return to Goji in a month’s time, and write a glowing review and groveling apology. I maintain what I said about the candles though….

2) I am trying to justify the vast amount of avocado’s I have been buying. I am also dreaming of a sort of “vegetarian goddess” diet. I don’t really envisage the next couple of months to be spent scoffing Tofu, and pretend sausages, and a selection of treats that Linda McCartney has kindly regurgitated. Rather, I am thinking more of a “bounty of the earth”, Bible stories type diet, lounging around and nibbling on almonds, honey, berries, unleavened bread, that kind of thing…

3) I am worried about getting a ‘fat back’. Alan Partridge has one. I think I am going the same way. The results of a late night Efes have started to have a worrying habit of reappearing as little areas of chub in the most bizarre of places. Currently my body remains normal, whilst my armpits seem to be swelling at an alarming rate. Over Easter I put on weight, but only IN MY FACE. This is weird and undesirable. Also I am going to the beach this summer, and wince at the prospect of my close resemblance to Pillsbury the Doughboy at present. Call me shallow (actually don’t, I’ve just done it for you…) but there’s a small part of me hoping that living purely off Tangfastics, chips and pancakes (ALL vegetarian things note) will turn me into Cindy Crawford.

CON’s:

1) I actually really like meat. I don’t think a platter of quinoa is ever going to hit the spot quite like a selection of Roger Kirk’s finest dead animal with fried bread. I am worried that I will fail in my quest for vegetarianism embarrassingly early on. I will cave like the mayor in Chocolat, and be found slumped on the floor of The Courtyard, smothered in ketchup and meaty detritus, and sobbing like a baby.

2) I’ll be that person that everyone wants to slap at dinner parties. Thankfully York is not well known for it’s underground elite dining movement, so this is less of a concern then it has been in previous years.

3) I might ending up looking like Gillian Mackeith. Note the particularly horrific picture.

Right, well I have numerous other Pro’s and Con’s but feel that this blog has gone on far too long, and I should just get down to my lettuce sandwich toute de suite. As this is purely an experiment, I would be very grateful for any advice from actual proper bona fide vegetarians (not you fish finger eating one’s though). Like, what do you eat n’ stuff?! Seriously though, anything you say I will do. And blog it. Unless I don’t want to. But probs will….

At first, inviting your sweetheart round will have seemed like a particularly cunning plan. Whilst friends will be hectically ringing York’s finest (and fully booked) restaurants, trying to create their own Fox and Apple cards out of yoghurt pots and biro and eventually booking a table for two at Dixy chicken, you’ll be smugly smirking on the sofa, kicking back in front of Dancing on Ice. You’ll seem sensitive and caring, you think to yourself, and more importantly you won’t have to compete with that greasy Italian waiter at Ask who wears tight, tight trousers and keeps thrusting his unfairly large “black pepper Madame?” into your girlfriend’s cleavage.

But as it gets closer to the time, you’ll start to panic. What if your dreamboat casually drops in that they’re a “veggie” just before you proffer them your massive Cumberland? What if your herpes-infested housemate refuses your polite suggestion of Sunday Night Gallery and insists on wandering around in his unseemly transparent boxers, doing elaborate farts in your lounge? Soon you’ll be kicking grannies in Lakeland Plastics in the shins to get that last heart shaped muffin mould and scouring Valentines themed websites, of the sort written by chubby, older women who wear Eeyore sweatshirts and also collect porcelain shoes.

Take a deep breath. For one thing, you’ve done considerably better than your amici at Dixy Chicken, in that you’ve already got your date to come back to yours. Ca-ching. It was that simple. They fell for it hook, line and sinker, and with any luck it will take half a bottle of Jacob’s Creek and 45 minutes before they look like this:
http://static.reelmovienews.com/images/gallery/the-whipped-cream-bikini.jpg.
However, for those of you still trembling beneath your tea-towel, here are some lovingly compiled notes on those popular Valentines snackettes:

Oysters – oysters are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, so you could be forgiven in thinking you were onto a winner. Get a bad one however, and your date (or yourself) is highly likely to get explosive diarrhea. Hmm, not so sexy now is it Casanova? No amount of lip gloss can undo that kind of damage. So, if the oyster isn’t tightly closed or it smells a bit funky then abandon ship. Also shucking oysters isn’t as much of a bloody walk in the park as everyone makes out. You have to get a very sharp knife and use it to click the shell open, although if you’ve had the other half of the Jacob’s Creek you’re probably twice as likely to slip and stab yourself in the palm, omitting a very girly high-pitched wheal at the same time.

Chocolate fondant – so, you fancy yourself as a bit of a Gordon Ramsey/Nigella at heart. Up till now you’ve been scoffing at this article, congratulating yourself on your marvelous cooking expertise and looking forward to cooking something risky. Your date will gasp, “aren’t they very difficult?”. “Not if you’re as good a cook as I am my darling” you’ll drawl and slip off the ramekin just like you’re hoping to slip off other things later…. And you know what? You’ll look like a knob. No-one likes a smartarse. If you really are that good under pressure, cook something more sophisticated like a bavarois or something equally unpronounceable, and leave the “I’m hard on the outside and soft in the middle” jokes in your head, where they belong.

Garlic – I’m actually going to recommend this. Get your date to eat loads of the stuff. Then if they’re considering the irresistible pull of SNG as an alternative to the delights of your recently hoovered boudoir, no-one will kiss them. They’ll basically have a choice of snogging you or no-one. Get in.

Strawberries and Champagne – this is very romantic and foolproof, a la pretty woman. Girls love strawberries because they’re almost pink, and guys love alcohol, with or without the strawberries. Double win.

Chocolate fountains – these are a really terrible idea, especially ones with white chocolate. You start off with bits of kiwi fruit and grapes, then move on to mini doughnuts, fudge and other things that you buy in the plastic packets bit of Sainsburys bakery, and before you know it your date has turned into your wife, and someone who once looked like Megan Fox now looks like Kerry Katona. And you’re stuck together. Forever. Don’t do it.

I’ve just asked my housemate, and apparently I don’t need more foods. So here are the ones I would have included in bullet point form: artichoke hearts (awww hearts, that’s sweet isn’t it?) pineapple (don’t ask why), soufflé (hope it doesn’t flop) and anything from the Marks and Spencer’s adverts (my friend Flick has just announced that they “turn her on”. She is single, and up for Valentines fun, XX Windmill Lane if you’re interested…)

Good luck and Happy Valentines Day everyone! Mwah! xxxxxxx

I was genuinely looking forward to this. Jamie’s PR team had done the trick and come Tuesday night the anticipation was killing me. I shut my loud and annoying Siamese cat in the airing cupboard (yes, I do do that, she likes it!). I managed to prise my Dad’s claw like grip from the remote and get him to listen to the cricket in his room by rustling a large bag of Doritos all the way up the stairs. I asked my brother to prepare me one of his legendary “Scooby snacks”, a kind of “this is going to be such a monumentally terrific program that I’m going to want to celebrate with a ball of melted cheese the size of a babies head” type snack. Everything was ready. And then it came….

Jamie’s America was, in fact, more than a bit pants. Normally, I am a big fan of Jamie Oliver. I admire his honesty. Whilst various C list celebs swear blind that they’d never shop anywhere other than Morrisons, and that they really are passionate about their new range of heat proof dishes, Jamie has always admitted that actually, he just wouldn’t mind the extra dosh. His campaigns to protect little chickens and dinner ladies, and abundance of genuine enthusiasm, have ensured that The Naked Chef will always have a special place in my heart. Sadly, “Jamie’s America” won’t be joining them. For starters (get it?!), there was very little actual food on show. The majority of the time Jamie was chillin’ with a gun toting posse of Mexicans, most of whom looked like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. In between heart wrenching stories about murdered uncles etc. Jamie would try and cram in the odd recipe, but it didn’t really work. “These Mexicans are living in absolute poverty” Jamie would begin, tears already streaming down my hormonal face and ruining my 10,000 calorie snackette below, “but they do make a mean salad” Jamie would suddenly add and start trying to rustle something up in da hood with a speed and lack of speech which would suggest he was about to be shot at. It was a bit like watching one of those RSPCA adverts with a dog in the rain, with Delia Smith trying to knock up a mean trifle in the background, all a bit bizarre. The food also didn’t look that good. At all. The ‘mole’ (pronounced mole-ay or mole-eh or something like that…) which was thrust in front of the camera at various intervals looked uncannily like something fished out of a Mexican sewer. If you eat with your eyes then I certainly wouldn’t be chowing down on that, and in any case I was now far too depressed to start thinking about pre-party nibbles while those on screen talked about their partners in jail for life. This was all washed down with a generous glug of Jamie’s “I’m a real Essex boy wotcha mate I’m from the hood too ya know” which grew quite tiresome. Jamie’s parents are from Clavering in Essex which is near me. It is one of the prettiest little market towns, the kind with old ladies with plastic hair caps and tartan shopping trollies. He’s just as gangsta as I am. Nuff said.

I feel bad for not liking it because I’m aware that I sound like a kind of Radio Times Marie-Antoinette, striving to keep suffering riff raff off my lovely safe middle-class telly, but it’s not that at all. Cooking just didn’t really seem to have any place in what could have been quite an interesting documentary. Whilst Jamie tried to convince us of his honkies back in the UK, a bunch of surly Mexicans looked on, clearly not the sunny, photogenic, speedy gonzales types that the production company had aimed for, looking less than happy that puppy face Oliver was trying to mussel in on their crew and nicking all their precious mole. So sadly it’s back on the nachos for now, a tiny bit frightened that Jamie’s vast support team are going to come and get me and ask me to retract this. Ah well, you’ve all got my back right? Safe.

Number 1 – go to the restaurant Dans le Noir in London. If you haven’t heard of it, this is a restaurant where you eat in a completely pitch black dining room, served by blind waiters. I can already hear people Northernly booming “But you cant see what the fook yer eating!”. Yes indeed my friends, that’s the idea. Supposedly by removing your sense of sight your other senses, e.g. taste, are heightened, transforming your Efes-furred taste buds into that of Lloyd Grossman (hopefully without the silly voice). Thus making you the food equivalent of that guy from ‘Perfume’ with the massive nose, if you will. I’m very curious to try this. Is this simply a master con of epic proportions? Is it likely that whilst diners are lamenting the delicious food to their companions a la Hamlet, the kitchen are snickering behind a mound of Iceland ready meals? Does the food on your plate actually spell out obscenities? Do waiters try and draw on the back of your neck with permanent marker? The possibilities for tom foolery and high-jinx of every kind are endless, and I’d like to see if they are exploited.

Number 2 – go on a “blind date”

As much as I love Cilla and am sure people have a “lorra lorra fun” on blind dates, the prospect fills me with horror. Your dining partner could look distractingly like a Lord of the Rings extra. They could have a “moley moley moley” (Austin Powers) that you simply can’t tear your eyes away from. Or a penchant for steam train mechanisms. Even if they turn out to be your Prince Charming, you still remain in danger. If like me you are wee bit cack-handed when it comes to clumsiness (my friend calls me a “gumby”, I think that’s a bit unfair…), there is every likelihood that as you stare into your lovers eyes you simultaneously drop a hefty forkful of summer pudding down your cleavage, and are left with the awkward dilemma of whether to attempt to retrieve it or not (you both saw it drop…).

However, the other day I considered the possibility of combining the two, and came up with what I believe is known as a “cunning plan, Batman”. How about a literal blind date, in the dark? Perfect! Embarrassing snaggle tooth? Misread the instructions of that home perm kit? Take them to Dans le Noir, they’ll never know! Yes, whilst your partner is entranced by your witty and stimulating chat, you can smirk to yourself that by the time they discover that medieval forehead of yours they’ll be well and truly in lurve. In fact the more you think about it, the better it gets. Don’t know what to wear? Go in your pj’s! Want the spaghetti but not got the fancy forkwork to make it look elegant? Go ahead! By the end of the evening when you’re both a lot more relaxed and, let’s face it, reasonably intoxicated, you can even whisk yourself off to the (apparently very nice) toilets for a quick sponge down to disguise any remnants of your enthusiastic tucking in.

Of course, like all my good plans, there remain a few slight problems. Mainly, it would be crushing to have your date announce your unmistakeable chemistry and whisk you out of the restaurant, shortly before emerging into the cruel light of day and dropping your wedding plans like a hot brick. There is also the possibility that the “witty and stimulating chat” remains non-existent and, realising it’s the best they’ll get, your sneaky dining partner seizes the opportunity for some indiscriminate and “accidental” gropage. It only takes one “let me help you with your napkin” and you’re begging for a candelabra. Still, it is comforting to know that there is a place where you could have a decent shot at seducing your object of desire, before they discover your huge zit. Think of it, if you will as a sort of head start.

Before ending, I would like to add a disclaimer to warn against creating your own “Dans le Noir” up in lovely York. In a restaurant, pitch black dining is “edgy”. Inviting a girl to your pitch black kitchen to disguise the mess however, can be read as nothing short than a bit creepy. Fairy lights or candles are almost as forgiving and a lot less “rapey”. Happy dining!

Miranda’s introduction seeks immediately to establish herself as “one of us” stating she hopes that we don’t use her book “to roll a joint”. I’m sorry, what?! At £7.99 in real book shops, surely a packet of Rizla’s is cheaper, although perhaps less entertaining… I should also point out that this book is a hardback. In “myths and truths about what you are told to do”, Miranda goes on to say that tasting is fine, but don’t taste everything or “you will end up a fat pie muncher!”. Firstly, what does Miranda have against the harmless, trusty old pie? Secondly, what does she have against fat people? A “fat pie muncher” sounds like they’d be jolly good fun to me, much more fun than Miranda’s hilariously named friend “Dump”, who she states she “pie munches with through thick and thin”, or I venture her perhaps now ex friend “Lou the bimbo”. Hilarious advice from Miranda is rife, featuring examples such as “Poached Salmon – No, not stolen from a nearby river!”. Where does Miranda live, that she feels the need to specify what ingredients can and cannot easily be stolen?! Furthermore, she specifies that the salmon “must not be a smaller fish”, so if you were to rebel against Ms.Shearer, fail to read the second line of the article and set off pointy stick in hand, where would you find this mystical river of the giant salmon anyway? Sounds like more trouble than its worth…. I’m starting to feel a bit mean now, but to be fair Miranda really does set herself up for this… statements such as making potted crab is “easier than making a bowl of cornflakes and a cup of tea” really are laughable. Unless of course, Miranda is making her cornflakes from scratch. My absolute all time favourite is “Always sift flour to check for weevils” (written in bold to emphasise the seriousness of the issue in hand). Weevils?! Rest assured reader that there is no need to start treating your bag of self-raising like a sand pit every time you want to make a cake. A) We are not in Napoleonic times B) I have seen weevils first hand (*gasp!*). Weevils are black. Flour is white. There is no need to chuck the poor old weevils about for fun and games when you can see them from the off. Seems a bit unfair. But then maybe that’s what Miranda and her friend Dump do on their Friday nights and have a rollocking good time too, I don’t know….

Anyway, I won’t ruin your fun, there are still so many times that Miranda shares her thoughts on Jiff Lemon (“its rank!” “I’ll kill you!”) left undiscovered, and its really worth buying, honestly. I leave you with Miranda’s advice not to chop chilli and pick your nose (thank GOD she told me), and that “Nibbly bits are good”. Classic.

To sympathise or not to sympathise, that is the question…

News has come to light this week that Gordon Ramsay’s Flagship Restaurant, “Gordon Ramsay”, has failed to make the San Pellegrino list of top 50 restaurants in the world, dropping from 13th last year, to failing to even make the top 100. In contrast, his protégé Marcus Waerings’ restaurant at the Berkley Hotel narrowly missed the top 50, coming in at number 52, and being tipped by organisers as “guaranteed to break through by 2010”.

Rumours suggest that reasons for Ramsay’s plummet to hell’s kitchen include a reported mouse and cockroach problem at his Claridges restaurant (personally I don’t mind this, adds a more “traditional” feel to things…), along with the Sun’s discovery of “boil in the bag” coq-au-vin being served at his gastropub’s. I must say, part of me is delighted. You can’t stride around, plunging your arms into other people’s deep fat fryers (which, by the way, always seems a little unnecessary to me, you can already see that its dirty without dangerously flinging around fistfuls of chip fat about your head …) and screaming “F*** YOUUUU” in the faces of frightened little Pillsbury the doughboy types, trembling in their homemade pinnies, and not expect that someday, it’ll come back to haunt you. Gordon takes no prisoners, and in this case maybe I don’t either. The truth is, if you DO fancy making like Kim and Aggie and can’t resist the pull of a mouldy fridge, you can’t spread yourself too thin – taking on the fat-tastic burgerland of the US of A armed only with a rubber glove and a bottle of Jiff was admirable, but to be honest Gordon, it was never going to work. However, a tiny part of me does feel a bit sorry for poor Grumpy Gords. He’s playing it down, but what’s basically just happened is the culinary equivalent of your boyfriend running off with your sister, and your sister telling you that she doesn’t love you anymore…and taking all your stuff. Waering was the best man at Gordon’s wedding, and his carefully phrased comments on his recent success can be loosely read as “YESSS, in yo face Gordon, suck on that!”. The rift between the two chefs has been steadily increasing, but Waering’s recent statement that Ramsay is just a “celebrity” who is “not really part of the industry now” is just not very nice is it? Perhaps he should learn some respect for his (3 year) elders – in any case, he’s certainly not about to call Michel Roux, who also dropped in the ratings, a camera loving courtesan, despite Ramsay and Roux being markably similar. So come on boys, now’s the time to kiss and make up. Otherwise Waering’s provocation that Gordon should “put a gun to my head, shoot me, put me in a box and bury me” may well be the icing on top of a Michelin starred cake.