Gordon Ramsay

it's easy to dislike a person like British chef Gordon Ramsay, the harsh language, the 'in your face' and often aggressive attitude. my first experience of him on the television i remember him hiding parma ham in a pizza then feeding it to a vegetarian who enjoyed it immensely, then telling him afterwards in a cocky manner and watching the poor guy turn white as he threw it up. i didn't entertain him for a few years after that stunt. i think it took quite a while before viewers came to accept him at all, never mind to actually like him.

One of my favourite television series was Kitchen Nightmares where he toured restaurants around England and later America turning round worthless businesses led by ambitious, but mostly deluded business owners, and in my opinion genuinely changing peoples lives for the better, leaving them with the skills to excel. good reality television.

i recently finished watching the first part of his new three part series titled "Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape" it's called this because things haven't been going well for the guy. in the new series he travels in India to find out about great Indian food from the richest and poorest places. a great show.

say what you want to say about the persona that is Gordon Ramsay, but, the bottom line is this: the guy is a winner. full stop. but a winner at what cost? well it comes at the cost of a few people finding him rude and i'm sure a few people being upset, but, the man is at the top of several trees with a list of accomplishments longer than an Indian banquet guest list in a career that doesn't take prisoners, it executes them. a person that constantly faces challenges (sometimes life threatening) runs marathons for charity and is constantly re-inventing himself and facing new fears without a moments hesitation.

personally i don't own a TV, and this suits me like smoke does a salmon. it helps me enjoy the sprinkling of television i have watched over the past year or two. no doubt a little of the guy goes along way, but i used to be a much rougher version of the person i am now. i upset plenty of people, rattled a few cages, told people how i saw it and thought very little of it. but i'm a smart guy and a cheeky monkey with it. i'll never forget leaving a woman in tears, then bumping into her years later and her thanking me saying that a bit of truth was what she needed. it's a mistake to be closed minded about any behaviour in a world where things are simply not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.

the media love to see a hero fall, but he's a fighter that won't stay down despite countless beatings. in modern Britain's age of extreme political correctness Gordon is a rare gem. the very nature of genius is to be at least a little mis-understood. and lets not forget, nobody needs a kick in the face but some people need a kick up the arse for their own good.

sorry, but it's true.

Smoothie

so i've taken to using the amazing 'older than me' blender given to me by the living legend that is my mother. these days diet is a very topical issue, and it should be. English diet is terrible, diet is a massive influence on health and bad diet is completely reversible and preventable. put crap in your body and you should expect to feel awful and to get sick. on the flip side if you've read a book on diet and tried to follow the instructions you might have found that most nutritionists are insane and following their custom designed diets makes eating a complete misery, how good it might be for your body then becomes completely irrelevant leaving me running for the pork pies screaming "i need it or i'll murder somebody!"

"Enzymes are organic catalysts that increase the rate at which foods are broken down and absorbed by the body. Found in plant foods such as fruits and vegetables, enzymes are destroyed when these foods are cooked. this is why fresh raw produce should constitute at least half of your diet. The quick and easy digestion of these foods, made possible by the enzymes will give you greater energy and health." (Juicing for Life)

if you're anything like me it's difficult to eat enough fruit or veg, and the stuff from the supermarket can often be rubbish and tasteless putting me off eating fruit altogether. however, stick it all in a blender and it's ace. thin it out with water, milk or fruit juice an even healthier add a little raw leafy green veg, like broccoli or kale (as in the picture). great thing about blenders is you can customise the drink exactly to your taste, you can vary the ingredients endlessly, you can ingest more fruit and veg than you would like to by itself and blenders are cheap to buy and easy to clean.

an easier, quicker and tastier way to eat more fruit and veg- great. because to put it quite frankly: if you don't eat fruit or veg you're f**ked.

Christmas

6 smiley faces on cars later, and i finally got it out of my system. a real white Christmas in England, pretty difficult to top that.

Home

back home. Melbourne to Huddersfield, summer to winter, 25ºC to 1ºC, sunshine to rain and frost. on the flip side the French markets are in town so it's cheap gourmet eating while i sit back and enjoy some music through some proper speakers.

Rock Ling

it's a deep sea fish called Rock Ling, sometimes the fish can be over 50 years old. it's good.

Sunday

Handmade south african Biltong with bread and cheese. Meatballs stuffed with onions and flowering thyme served with grilled garlic, plum tomatoes and rice. For desert, a brick of chocolate melted down to a moose served with fresh mint crystalised in sugar. Not exactly a dogs dinner...sorry Cosmo