Gino says "Hello" and solves your lunchbox problems

Do you remember, back in the halcyon days of Spring, when I was invited to London to interview the one and only Gino D'Acampo? You don't? I'm going to have to point you at my interview with him here and here, aren't I? Tut.

Anyhoo, Gino made a little video for this very blog to introduce his Good Food Fight which he launched with Cheestrings back in May. It's supposed to be attached to another video but I've been so swamped with things since our holiday, there's not been time for that. So, here's Gino saying hello to you all. Say hello back.

Gino and me (part 2)

Welcome back to part 2 of my interview with Gino D’Acampo. In part 1, Gino told me about his love of Twitter, his Good Food Fight campaign with Cheestrings and how he’s been banned from the kitchen at home. I’d relaxed by now and we were chatting more than I was interviewing him.

I wanted to know what Gino though was the secret to good Italian food.  “It’s to keep it simple. A lot of people, they think that creating Italian food is difficult and they need to try to find these fancy ingredients. Italian food is about buying a fresh tomato when it’s in season, buying a good quality extra virgin olive oil and a few basil leaves and there you have it, that is what good Italian food is all about”. His quick fix for a fast, healthy meal is, of course, a plate of pasta. “In the time you’ve boiled the pasta for 7-8 minutes, I can do a sauce, a tomato sauce with cheese on top, with a bit of fresh basil.”

He feels that food in Italian restaurants here is improving but is still behind. “It’s getting better. But still, I think we’re still about 20 years behind here. To be honest with you, in London at the moment, there are probably not even 10 restaurants that I consider do proper Italian food. Not even 10; I think the last time I counted, I was on 7.”

We somehow came on to the fact that I do weekly meal plans and it turns out he’d been looking at my Meal Planning Monday post that morning – oh, and the post detailing the contents of my fridge! Whilst part of me cursed the timing of these posts, Gino told me how he doesn’t like meal plans but sees the need for them. “My wife tried to do a weekly menu and after one month, I had to say, “We’re going to have to stop this” because so often when my wife planned to have, say, pizza, I don’t fancy pizza, so I’d say to her, ”Why don’t you do a bit of freestyle?” so we just cook whatever we want. But with kids, you have to plan ahead, especially if you want to keep food healthy. When people ask me what is the secret to healthy food, I say you need to plan your shopping.”

Last year, Gino published a book called The Italian Diet, and being interested in fitness myself, I asked him whether he’d ever struggled with his weight. “Never. I called the book “The Italian Diet” but it’s not really a diet book. It is to show people that if you eat sensibly, you just don’t put weight on. If you eat sensible – of course if you eat a kilo of cheese a day, you’re going to put on weight - but if you have a portion-controlled amount of cheese, everything is fine. All things in moderation. That’s what the book was all about.“  To stay fit, he swims and “I move a lot. I’m always up doing something.”

What about Gino on a day off? I asked him what activities he does with his sons when he has free time. Having recently given up his Sunday radio show, he has more time at home. But do you know what he does? He cooks! “We play and stuff like that, but I try to cook with them if I can. What I’m trying to do is to show them that cooking is a fun thing to do. And that is important because once children realise that cooking is fun, they will use that for the rest of their life. My kids cook anything,  simple things like cheese on toast, a plate of pasta with tomato sauce or anything that they like.”

I was disappointed to learn that Gino is not a fan of football. “I don’t like football very much. My little boy does it; Rocco loves football. Luciano prefers rugby, he’s a rugby player. I actually prefer rugby to football, to be honest with you. I think it’s more interesting, more a gentleman’s game.”  

Finally, I ran out of questions.  The time had passed in a flash and after a hug, a photocall and exchange of pleasantries, I was back outside. I got my phone out to tweet someone to meet them, looked up and there was Gino stood next to me. When he noticed my phone, he laughed at me tweeting until I explained what I was doing. My abiding impression of him was that he was great to interview. He was friendly and easy to talk to, and occasionally a bit cheeky; in other words, very much like his on-screen persona. It was a pleasure to meet him.

And before anyone asks, yes, he remained fully clothed throughout!

Visit Cheestrings.com to learn more about Gino’s Good Food Fight, and see how Cheestrings are working to help mums make good food fun for the lunchbox.

(I have not been paid a fee to write this interview, although my travel expenses were refunded. I have included a link to the Cheestrings website as requested but other than that, I have not been told what to write.)

Gino and me (part 1)

When I received an email entitled “Gino D’Acampo”, I thought it was a press release. Imagine my shock when I found it was an invitation to meet and interview the Italian TV chef, famous for cooking nude on This Morning and winning “I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here” in 2009. I was dumbstruck, because well, I’m a blogger, not a journalist!

So, one Monday morning, I was scribbling nervously on a tube into London, making sure I had questions covering all of the five Fs that this blog is about. I had tweeted about my nerves the night before, and had a tweet back from Gino. When I walked in, my mouth suddenly dry and trying to maintain my composure, he recognised me from my profile picture straight away. Luckily, after me fumbling around with setting my phone to record and getting my notebook out, the conversation started to flow and I forgot my nerves. In fact, we talked so much that I know we went over the time allotted for the interview and covered so much that I’ve split this into two parts.

It seemed natural to start the interview by talking about Twitter. Gino is a big fan and told me why he loves it. “I think it’s a good way to get a response from people straight away, and you can be sociable with people, it’s great. What’s the point of doing my job if I don’t ever have the chance to talk to people that follow me?” He likes to reply to his followers but he can’t reply to everyone – he has over 200,000 followers!

I’d been invited to do the interview as part of a campaign being launched today with Cheestrings called Gino’s Good Food Fight. I asked him why he was doing it. “I got together with Cheestrings to start Gino’s Good Food Fight because I wanted to help busy mums who are preparing lunchboxes. I wanted to make sure that whatever they put in there is healthy and a bit of fun in the lunch box. We need to excite children. What we wanted to achieve is when kids open their lunchbox, they are excited and open it with a smile, so they eat healthy with a smile.” I wondered if his children – he has two boys, aged 9 and 6 – had packed lunches. They don’t at school, but Gino tells me they have them when they go to football and rugby and that Rocco, his youngest, gets excited just having a lunchbox, just like Monkey and Missy Woo do. “We want to make sure that the excitement is still there. That’s the idea of Gino’s Good Food Fight.”

Gino says his boys are good eaters and try everything because that is how they have raised them. He feels that it’s down to the parents to get children to try new foods. “A lot of parents, they’re scared to let them try stuff... Some parents, they don’t like certain things. They automatically assume their kids won’t like it... My little boy, he never liked broccoli but the third time that he tried it, he thought it was the best thing ever. You should try something at least two or three times.” His approach to food with his sons is very much the same as his parents’ approach when he was a child. “My mum and dad always wanted me to try something new. It’s the same with my boys.”

I was interested in how they ate at home and whether it was mainly Italian. He told me it was a bit of everything – from Italian to barbeques and Sunday roasts. When pressed on his favourite cuisine apart from Italian, he chose Thai and Mediterranean cuisine as his favourites. “I like Mediterranean cuisine because I find it very full of flavour, very interesting.”

You won’t be surprised to learn that he usually does most of the cooking at home.  “I’m one of these people that if somebody else is in the kitchen, I have to get in there and do something .My wife hates that. The nanny hates that as well”. Things might be changing, however. “I’m chilling out lately, I have to say, I’m trying to avoid the kitchen. One of the reasons why is the nanny and my wife, they completely banned me from there because they say that I always find something wrong.” I’m sensing the perfectionist in him when it comes to food.

That’s it for part 1. Come back tomorrow, when Gino tells me the secret to good Italian food, his opinion of the state of Italian restaurants in the UK, and I find out Gino has been looking in my fridge!

Visit Cheestrings.com to learn more about Gino’s Good Food Fight, and see how Cheestrings are working to help mums make good food fun for the lunchbox.

(I have not been paid a fee to write this interview, although my travel expenses were paid. I have included links to the Cheestrings website as requested but other than that, I have not been told what to write.)

Silent Sunday