Jamie Oliver HomeCooker

A couple of months back I was invited to Jamie Oliver’s ‘Fifteen’ restaurant for the launch of the HomeCooker, a new kitchen appliance co-created by Jamie and Philips.  The HomeCooker is a multi-functional device designed to make your life easier when cooking homemade meals. It can stir, steam, sauté, melt, simmer, stew, boil, and even fry whilst cooking unattended - giving you some quality time back.  That was the blurb anyway, so I was intrigued to see it in action.

The HomeCooker comes with a book of 25 recipes created by Jamie Oliver and the two they demonstrated were Classic pan-cooked breakfast and the homemade toasted granola.  Watching them cook bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and a fried egg all together in the one machine was unreal and tasted gorgeous.  I’m not the world’s biggest granola fan but I do appreciate that it must be a pain to homemake, especially when you’re trying to toast the nuts, seeds and oats in honey, but the HomeCooker made short work of it.  They were also demonstrating the cutting tower that is part of the range, it has 5 cutting tools that can slice, shred or julienne straight into the cooker and it was making short work of everything they were putting in it.  I came away impressed with what I had seen and began scheming a way of making the Mrs buy me one.

A month or so later I got a call asking if I would like to try out the HomeCooker myself and I gladly accepted, especially as I hadn’t yet convinced the Mrs to treat me.  I had already figured out how it would fit into my life to make things easier and now I got to put that to the test.  I love to cook stews, goulashes and the like, most often standing out in the kitchen alternating my time between stirring the pot and slurping the wine and hopefully this would free up some time for something else.  I didn’t have the chopping tower to test, but to be honest  I’m quite proud of my knife skills and I’ve got it down to only once a month where I cut myself deeply enough to require a superglue repair, so I wasn’t that worried.

The first recipe I picked from the book was the slow cooked Hungarian beef goulash, with a cooking time of 230 minutes.  The instructions were easy to follow and with the timer and temperature control sorted with a quick touch of a button we were on our way.  I found it hard to resist the temptation to stir, distrustfully watching the stirring arm slowly whir around.  I genuinely spent so much time watching the process, keeping an eye on various ingredients to check if it was all being stirred randomly, that the Mrs started to mock me “You get given a machine that does all the work for you and you just stand there staring at it. Div”.  I tartly responded that the recipe called for sour cream and we only had normal so could she just stare at that for a while?  I soon had the kitchen to myself again.

The machine was cooking the food at a much higher temperature than I would normally have used myself, with everything at a constant high bubble, but due to the constant stirring nothing was burning or getting stuck to the bottom of the pan.  This resulted in a lot of the ingredients melting away into the goulash and creating a beautiful thick sauce.  I can only again apologise for my photos (I think I need Philips to invent me a cooking camera), that do not do the food justice.  The goulash was gorgeous, wolfed down by all and has become a firm favourite.

I decided to try it out with a few of my own recipes and vowed to not stand and stare at it, instead spending the time saved doing something more constructive like playing the Xbox, watching the TV or when things got desperate, playing with the kids.  The timer gives off a fairly loud beep once it’s counted down and auto shuts-off so nothing gets burnt.  First up was Spicy Meat Gumbo, a recipe that normally requires you to stand over the pot as you turn onions, celery and peppers into the roux that forms the base of the dish.  The HomeCooker handled itself well, I kept myself away from the kitchen and the resulting dish was beautiful (if not badly pictured and presented).

Next up was Ox cheek stew, I love cooking with this meat, especially when cooked for 3 hours or so, making it the perfect recipe for the device.  Again the HomeCooker didn’t let me down, the onions melted away and created a really rich and thick sauce.  I was in cooking heaven.

My next choice was something that cooks quickly but demands a lot of stirring, Chorizo and tomato pasta.  A fairly simple meal that just requires you to fry up the chorizo and onion, then add the dry pasta and tomatoes.  Unfortunately this is a meal that always leaves a sticky mess at the bottom of my pot as it requires almost constant stirring at a fairly high heat and well, I’m easily distracted.  The HomeCooker handled this with ease and due the simple temperature controls I could easily switch from 250 to fry the chorizo to 175 to get things boiling, to 130 to finish things off.  Job done, sorted.

Since the initial experimenting phase I’ve now integrated the HomeCooker into my normal cooking routine and it gets used at least twice a week, sometimes more.  It also comes with a pasta insert and steaming trays and I’m looking forward to using them to make my life even easier.  I have to be fair, I do enjoy cooking and I don’t really consider myself to be a lazy cook and my initial worry was that this device would turn me into one.  My fears were unfounded as on those days where traditionally I would find myself without enough time to prepare a proper dinner resulting in me just reaching into the freezer for a ready meal, were replaced with me throwing the ingredients for bolognaise or chilli into the HomeCooker and letting it do it’s stuff and that can only be a good thing.

For the technically minded amongst you, the 3 litre stainless steel bowl is dishwasher friendly and more than large enough for family size cooking, the temperature range is from 40-250 degrees and the 99 minute timer can run up or down.  More information about the product, including recipes can be found at www.philips.co.uk/homecooker.  The Philips HomeCooker is the first product in the Philips Jamie Oliver kitchen range and is exclusively available at John Lewis.  Thanks to Philips and Samantha from Ketchum Pleon for the event invitation and the use of the HomeCooker.  And as usual I am going to have to move home before they send the courier round to pick it back up again, I’ll leave it with a neighbour, honest.

A Warner Christmas

This week a Christmas goodie bag arrived from Warner Brothers for me.  I waited until everyone else had left the house as my lot are like hyenas sniffing around an entertainment carcass whenever boxes like this arrive.  Safely on my own I opened Santa’s sack and out popped 3 DVD’s.  The Dark Knight Rises, New Year’s Eve and Polar Express, something for each one of us.

Obviously I snagged Dark Knight Rises, the final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy.  Nolan’s Batman is a dark and moody version and steers clear of the cheesiness of previous incarnations.  The special effects are breathtaking especially the overhead shots of Gotham City as it turns into a warzone.  I won’t give anything else away, but it’s a must see film and had me gripped from start to finish.  Watch out for a star turn by Tom Hardy as Bane, with Michael Caine and Gary Oldman returning to their rolls of Alfred and Commissioner Gordon.

I got a bit sneaky with ‘New Year’s Eve’, I’m not a massive fan of ensemble rom-coms (I obviously need to get more in touch with my feminine side) so I suggested to the Mrs that she spend a nice evening on her own with a glass of wine, some chocolate and a DVD whilst I go out and do some last minute shopping.  She readily agreed and having already finished my Christmas shopping anyway, I popped down the pub for a few hours.

The Mrs thoroughly enjoyed the film which basically I host of stars in intertwining stories all based in New York on New Year’s Eve.  I may even give it a sneaky watch myself, but obviously when nobody else is about, I have to keep up appearances.

Finally there’s Polar Express, a motion capture computer-animated fantasy film that had become a Christmas Classic since its release 8 years ago.  It features Tom Hanks in a variety of rolls and the kids had been hassling me since it arrived to put it on for them.  I didn’t really intend to watch it, I had decided to use the time to tackle their bedrooms, or at least read the paper, but I found myself drawn in to the film and ended up sitting with them and watching it through to the end.  It’s a great feel good movie and one I won’t mind watching more than once, which is a good thing as the kids want to watch it again already.

So there you go, 3 films to cater for everyone in the household and all would make great gifts for Christmas.  Many thanks to Warner Brothers for the freebies and have a Happy Movie Watching Christmas.

The Absence

A few weeks ago we kept Kaede off school because she had been up all night coughing and looked generally unwell.  We still had to take Nate to school, so as she walked past Kaede’s classroom The Mrs spoke to her teacher, told her the situation and that was that.  Or so we thought.

A week later we received a letter from her school, Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, which said the following:

“We do not appear to have received a letter concerning Kaede’s absence on the Wed 3/10/12.  WE would be grateful if you could complete the tear-off slip below, stating the reason for absence, and return it to school as soon as possible.  If no absence slip is received by the school then, unfortunately, the absence will be registered as unauthorised.”

Well they wanted a letter and a letter they got:

Further to your letter dated 10 October 2012 querying Kaede’s absence from school on 3 October 2012 and further absence of a letter explaining said absence.

On the day in question my Wife made the heinous error of actually informing Miss ****** in a verbal face to face type fashion that Kaede would indeed be absent on that day and the reasons for that absence.  Unfortunately I was not at the morning drop-off as I had stayed behind to look after Kaede.  If I had of been present I would have patiently explained to my wife that she should have stood outside the school office and rung the school phone number to report Kaede’s absence.  Of course, it now seems that that also would have been erroneous as a letter is now required for a single days absence.

Firstly I apologise for the lack of a hand written letter but unfortunately my calligraphy skills leave a lot to be desired.  In fact they have oft been likened to the trail a diarrheatic spider leaves as he crawls towards a toilet.

The reasons for Kaede’s absence from school on 3 October 2012 can be simply explained but I feel that, due to my previously mentioned administrative error, you deserve a full explanation for said absence.  I hope the following will be indeed that.

Kaede was born on 23 February 2005, it was rather a cold and wet day, and in fact at one point we actually had snow.  This prompted, a rather rash one as it turned out, a suggestion by myself that we should give her the middle name of Yukionna – which means ‘snow fairy’ in Japanese.  Despite the copious amounts of gas and air, pethidine and adrenaline running through my Wife’s system, she still had the good sense to verbally slap me down for the idiot I was obviously being.  To this day Kaede remains middle name free.

Five days later we brought Kaede home for the first time, it was a joyous day for all of us.  Well I say all of us, Kaede cried a lot and when she did smile I actually think it was wind, although I didn’t tell her mother that, sometimes it’s best not to shatter illusions too early.

The first six months were hectic, of course they were, but we struggled on through with the dangled promise of a night of uninterrupted sleep on the horizon – that day never came.  From aged six months Kaede would cough throughout the night, waking first herself and then us up.  As is the want of anxious parents, we took Kaede to our local GP and we were prescribed the first of many liquid paracetamol prescriptions.  After a further six months I was actually convinced that she drank more paracetamol than milk, although I’m sure that’s an exaggeration on my part.

From aged 12 to 24 months we saw a plethora of Doctors (I once read that the collective for a bunch of Doctors was a Quack of Doctors but I remain unconvinced as to the veracity of that), all of whom had a different explanation as to her ill-health.  Six different explanations with only one thing in common – the problem was not of their speciality.  Kaede became the equivalent of a human pass-the-parcel with your reward being a hacking two year old.

It was at aged two that fate and the NHS finally shone on us.  Upon witnessing my Wife’s near-on physical breakdown in the surgery reception, a kindly old Doctor finally recommended a specialist in chest and lungs and arranged an appointment.  We attended this appointment with not much hope in our hearts, after all we had had the health carrot dangled in front of us before.  Like doubting-Thomas’s we trudged into the room only to find the light at the end of the tunnel.  Kaede had a form of acid reflux that began with G and had too many vowels in it.  The acid had been creeping up from her stomach as she slept and like an unwelcome traveller in a disused car park, started to camp out in Kaede’s lungs.  With the help of one pill, taken thrice daily for two weeks, she was all but cured.  She had to remain on antibiotics for a solid two years, but eventually all was good and she started to sleep through the night.

All this leads to the night of 2 October 2012, an evening that started as normal but soon went to hell in a hand-cart.  At approximately 20.17 I heard a slight cough emanating from Kaede’s bedroom.  It was only a slight cough and your average parent probably would not have heard it.  We are not average parents however and despite the slightly high volume of the TV (we were watching Boardwalk Empire and it can be a little loud in places) we sat up like a pair of hyperactive meerkats.  I placed my hand on my Wife’s arm to calm her, reduced the volume on the TV and cocked an ear towards the front room door.

There it was again, definitely a cough and definitely Kaede.

I trudged up the stairs with some reluctance it must be said, fearing the worst but trying to remain optimistic, it may have been a dust-bunny or something.  I sat outside Kaede’s door playing Angry Birds on my iPhone to pass the time (with the volume off of course) and waited to see how bad it would get.  The cough persisted and started to get louder and chestier.  I started to fear that her old illness was back, although the chances were that  it was because she had been running around the garden without a coat on despite being told to put one on four times.

We administered the standard duo of cough mixture and paracetamol suspension and crossed our fingers.  By 22.00 the coughing still hadn’t stopped, it wasn’t at an alarming level but just enough to keep her awake.  She slept with my wife in the family bed that night, with myself decamping to the sofa bed we have downstairs (a sofa bed that was bought with exactly these situations in mind).

Both my Wife and Kaede had a sleepless night that night (which may explain my Wife’s mistake in actually telling the teacher face to face what the problem was with Kaede) and we decided that Kaede should stay at home that day and try to catch up on some sleep.  Her cough seemed to have improved and we felt that a day of rest and maybe some educational television, such as the Discovery or History Channel, would do her the world of good.  This was indeed the case and she steadily improved throughout the day.

My Wife and I had a rather frank discussion that night and we decided that unless we had a repeat of the previous night, Kaede could return to school the following day.  A quick perusal of your attendance records will show you that Kaede did, in fact, attend school the next day as we did not have a repeat performance of the previous nights coughing.

I hope this letter is sufficient for your records, in fact it may be a good idea to carefully glue it to the front of her file, thereby saving me the trouble of explaining what we call ‘The Sleepless Coughing Years’ again.  If you have any further questions or if there is anything else you need explained regarding this unfortunate situation, please, please, do not hesitate to write to me and ask.  I have also decided to carry a pad of Post-it notes with me at all times, this way I can write the reasons for any future absences on them and hand the note straight to you.

Jamie Harding,
Parent of Kaede Harding.
Well one of them, she has two.
The other being my wife Patricia Harding.

As funny as a heart attack

So I’m running, I can’t hear them coming but I know they are.  I stupidly turn around and they’re even nearer now, a row of snarling stone teeth.  The weeping angels are catching me.  Thankfully I wake up, cursing my daughter for making me watch Doctor Who again.

But my god, the pain in my chest, it feels like one of the kids are sitting on me.  I sit up and check, it’s not unheard of for one of them to jump on me as a loving wake up call.  Nope, no kids, just an incredible heavy pain across my upper chest.  Now I’m worried.

Could the dream really have given me a heart attack, however mild?  A more likely alternative was surely the ox-cheek curry I made last night, not crazy hot but nice and spicy.  I decided to sleep it off.

Having nodded off I then dreamt I was sharing a pint with a somewhat pissed David Cameron, a captive audience as he lectured me on the necessity of economic prudence.  To be honest I would rather have the weeping angels back.

Again I wake.  I take a deep breath, hold it and hope.  Nope, still in pain and now a healthy dose of panic has been thrown into the mix.  Of course it was heartburn, it had to be, but I started to wonder about how many people ignored the first signs of a heart attack purely because they had eaten a curry the night before?  Maybe the curry was giving a false negative, as it were?  I mean, having a curry can’t be a cure or preventative to having a heart attack can it?

But still, my irrational overriding worry was that if I did go to the hospital and it did turn out to be heartburn, well, then I would forever be known as a Sean.  Sean is a close friend of mine who called an ambulance when he had a heart attack only to be given a Rennie at A&E.  And of course we let him forget about it, not.

I didn’t really want to tell the Mrs, she’s not exactly known to be a calming influence in these situations and when she caught me clutching my chest as I was getting dressed, she reacted with a predictable but vaguely acceptable level of drama.  She suggested that she should Google the symptoms and on the basis I wanted some peace and quiet whilst I got ready, I acquiesced.  When I went downstairs 15 minutes later all she had found out was that Jo had posted yet another cute picture of Tallhulabelle McLilly and Phil the Postboy’s piles were playing up.  God bless Facebook, the medical almanac of the brain-dead.

She then quietly reminded me that we were due at church this morning and for once I didn’t complain, I figured I would need all the help I could get.

Upon arrival we sat ourselves down in a fairly empty pew, all the better for me to nod off in, with the only witness to my upcoming blasphemy being Michelle and her daughter.  Looking around the church I noticed how many stone angels there actually were in the church and I felt the pain in my chest starting to increase.  I started to think that coming to church was a bad idea, then Josie and the J’s turn up like a pack of cartoon cats fighting, and I knew it was.

The priest walked in and the place began to sound like a Hendrix concert, well the feedback did anyway.  His radio mike clearly clashing with his hearing aid and I watched a hundred pensioners rock out and adjust their own earpieces.

It was during the first reading, Marks gospel to Leviticus – “May he with the most pious face cast the first stare” – that I had my own epiphany.  I would consume a load of things that could potentially make heartburn worse, if the pain increased then the problem was heartburn, if it didn’t then it was obviously time for a trip to A&E.

After a quick search of Binggle I had my list of consumables and, with the help of a trip to TFI Thursdays, I started on my painful voyage of discovery.

I started with a large vodka and bitter lemon with a pint of Budweiser to wash it down.  Ordering a large plate of JD Buffalo wings, French fries and onion rings, I felt guilt free, safe in the knowledge that I was conducting a medical experiment that could save my life.  Washing all that lot down with a Bloody Mary I ordered dessert, the Chocolate Mountain of Dairy Surprise (the surprise being the amount they charged for it).  I contentedly patted my now distended stomach (OK, even more distended) and awaited the results of my experiment.

I lay here now, it’s 2am and thankfully I’m in my own bed rather than the hospitals.  The pain got worse, of course it did, so now I’ve settled for the old fashioned remedy for heartburn – Pepto Bismol and JD, over ice of course.

*AFTERWORD*

Just in case I was wrong, thanks for reading me over all these years.  Please leave loads of really complimentary comments about how my writing changed your life and put a never-ending smile on that cute old face of yours, my grieving family would no doubt appreciate it. 

Cheers.