When people bring THEIR food in to YOUR Kitchen

When people bring their food in to your Kitchen

O.K I know I’m miserable, opinionated and whinge continuously on my blogs BUT

‘I hate it when people bring their food in to my house’

I realised this weekend when I put on a BBQ for a group of friends and one of them brought round a salad – I didn’t ask them too, they didn’t have to but they just did - - - My whole menu had been planned for days, handpicked and prepared with love and imagination – timed to perfection and delivered with professionalism – then I had to plunk their food on to my well designed chutney and sauce laderned table – I didn’t want it, I looked at it with resentment and hatred ‘I told it in my mind, ‘what are you doing here, ’you don’t belong’ go away’!

I mean I’m a chef – the one thing I am good at in life is cooking – it’s what I do, so why would I want someone else’s food blended in with my fineries – why would I want some odd obstruction, why would someone think they could compete – If Paul Hollywood was coming round for afternoon tea and offered a sourdough loaf, of course I’d say yes, if Heston Bloomin-somthing offered an apple that was really a sausage encased in a black pudding dome – I’d bite his hand off. But if an amateur asked me if I wanted them to bring a dish round I would say ‘of course, if you can cook it better than I can’, or else why the hell would I want it!!!! But of course, you can’t – you can’t say anything, I’m very British – I just say, ‘wow, how kind, thank you’ and then bitch about it in a blog. Worst still I have to eat some of it as not to offend and sometimes pretend I like ‘some oddness with my dinner’ ‘thank you (again – I say with lying resentment) its lovely’ when maybe it’s not! When in my head I’m saying - - ‘vile offensive dish – be gone with you and don’t return’

Would you take a sketch of your garden round to a professional artist and expect them to display it next to theirs, would you knock up a pottery mug and take it to a potter and expect them to use it, would you go round a beauticians house and start painting her face with blusher – of course you wouldn’t, so why go round a chefs house with a bowl of chilli!!!! Yes, last year I got a bowl of tasteless, salty, under cooked hard textured bouncy beef chilli - - ‘Thanks’ I said and eat it!

I’m not saying you should never do it – some people love it and welcome it gladly, I know plenty of people who love it if I take a dish or two round but I would never do it without asking them first and agreeing on what I should bring. Plus sometimes you get asked to bring a dish round, so you do it gladly to help them out – especially if they are bad cooks!

But I’ve been in catering for over 30 years, I love to cook, I love to cook for other people – I don’t want the food that I’m so proud of next to something I didn’t do - -

And maybe that’s it - - maybe I would hate it if their food was better than mine, maybe I’m jealous of that dish, envious of what it might be, maybe I hate it when people say it’s nice and I have to admit I didn’t cook it - it was Jenny from the Block.

My house - My food – My compliments!!!

(Just in case people like it)

Professional Pride – I like to call it

But some people like to call it being a fussy, moany old pain in the assss

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