My radio debut. Not quite a radio star.

Quick blog post before bed!

I was invited to be interviewed over the phone to talk about blogging on the local radio station, BBC Radio Lancashire. It all came about when they started following me on twitter and I made a funny comment about them wanting to find out what bloggers got up to in their spare time and that actually my life was dull!

The next day they DMd me and asked me to call them. Before I know it, they're asking me to appear on the radio the next morning. I accepted and then thought "What have I done?"

Anyhow, I got up early the next morning and they rang me a few minutes before. I was only on air talking to Graham Liver for about 5 minutes and I don't think I made a fool of myself. I got some good feedback on Twitter from my followers anyway.

If you want to hear it, the programme is on iplayer until Tuesday 11th so you can listen in here. I'm on from about 85 minutes in. I still haven't listened to myself back as I hate listening to my voice, but apparently I'm posh. Really? I love that I got introduced as a Lancashire-based author. It made me sound important!

Listen in if you fancy. But I'm a radio star now. (Not)

Talking to Mark Hix - on food and (prawn) cocktails

Following shortly after I got to interview Gino D'Acampo, I was offered the chance to interview Mark Hix. You might not know who he is but I do! He used to be chef director of the group that runs The Ivy, that favourite celebrity haunt. A few years ago, he left to set up his own chain of restaurants, now in 3 sites across London and one in Lyme Regis. I first came across Mark Hix when watching Great British Menu in 2007. His food was simple, but stunning. His competitor in the heats thought his main course - a rabbit and crayfish stargazey pie - was "pub grub" but both that and another dish featured in the final banquet. I would have loved to have met Mark in person but it wasn't possible to arrange, so this interview took place with the wonders of mobile phones and conference calls. I started by asking Mark about a new dish he's created for his restaurant in Selfridges in conjunction with Bird's Eye. 

Tell me about the Emperor Prawn Cocktail  you’ve created - what’s different about it?

The focus is on high quality ingredients. I used Birds Eye Emperor Prawns as they are frozen very quickly and are very meaty so they are a high quality product  - a bit like frozen peas; because they are frozen so quickly, you can guarantee the quality which you can’t with fresh.

Apart from that, I use high quality ingredients to make a really good prawn cocktail – crisp lettuce, a high quality tomato ketchup and mayonnaise but I’ve also added a bit of horseradish, Tabasco and a little Pernod to the sauce.

Why did you decide to get involved with Bird’s Eye and create the dish?

Everyone loves a prawn cocktail. Back in the 70s and 80s, it was a classic dish so it was good to take the Emperor Prawns and turn it into something high quality, it’s really popular with the customers.

Lots of mums mentioned your Eat Up! Book and how good it is. One of my twitter followers even asked me to thank you for it.

Yes, I get a lot of positive comments about it. It was the first book I published. What I wanted to do was show that adults and children could eat the same things – perhaps with a little bit of adaptation for the children, but that adults didn’t have to cook separate meals for their children.

Did you cook much with your children when they were younger? (He has twin girls)

Yes, I think that’s quite important as it helps to get children to eat proper food.

What sort of things would you cook with them?

Risotto – because that’s an excellent dish for children, and fish fingers – actually, fish fingers is our biggest seller in the restaurants. We make it with sustainable fish like pollock or coley and we serve them with some nice mushy peas and chips.

A chef's lifestyle is not really conducive to a healthy lifestyle. What do you do to stay fit?

I don’t really do anything. I eat fairly healthily – a lot of people who work in kitchens can abuse their diet and not eat a very good diet.  I’m not a health freak or anything – I think it’s about balancing it out.

What type of food do you most like to eat when it’s not you cooking?

It really depends on my mood. Food is all about moods. So I might like some Asian or Indian, something with a bit of spice. Or it might be fish.

What do you think of the standard of restaurant food in this country, both in London and outside?

Well, we’re lucky in London, it’s said to be one of the gastronomic capitals of the world along with New York and Paris. There’s over a hundred different cuisines available. It has improved over the last 10 years. In terms of cooking, I think we’re ahead of the French now. Even beyond London, it’s improved a lot – even in pubs, you can get good food now. There’s still a lot of bad too but that happens everywhere.

What are your favourite restaurants?

My friend has a place called Viet Grill in London.  And places like River Cafe – both are just really good, with no fuss.

You don’t really like the fine dining experience then? 

No. It’s fine but it’s really only for special occasions and it’s not something you can eat all the time. Really good food you can eat any time is what I like.

How do you relax when you’re not working?

Fishing – in fact, I’m off to the coast this weekend to do some fishing.

Mark Hix has created a modern twist on the classic prawn cocktail dish using Birds Eye’s new Emperor King Prawns. The Emperor Prawn Cocktail is on the menu at HIX Restaurant and Champagne Bar, Selfridges during Project Ocean. Emperor King Prawns are Birds Eye’s biggest and juiciest king prawns; cooked in their shell to retain more flavour and succulence and then peeled and frozen within two and a half hours to maximise taste and freshness. http://www.birdseye.co.uk

(I have not been paid for this interview.)

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.)

So, I went to an interview....

I had an interview the other day for a part-time job. I was adamant I wanted something not too taxing, that allowed me to be there for the children at the right times. The job, on paper, seemed perfect - 15 hours a week, 10 mins away in the middle of town, stable(ish) employers, the works.

The interview went OK. The typing test they gave me was horrible - I can type 50-55 wpm but not apparently when I'm not allowed to correct any mistakes at all. I left in two minds, certain that I would not get the job, that they would find someone suited better to the requirements of the role as set out by them.

The night before, I had suddenly been overcome by a complete crisis of confidence. And yet, I knew I could do the job well without trying too hard. I told Twitter about it and got lots of fantastic positive feedback and kind wishes from my followers - for which, by the way, a huge thank you; sharing the love is one of the things I absolutely adore about Twitter.

By the time I came out of that interview though, I knew what it had all been about. It wasn't nerves at all; it was dread. For as much as I fool myself that I want a not too taxing job, I know I would be bored. I am going to need something else. The job was not for me. When they rang this morning, I actually had a moment of panic that they were going to offer me the job. I have never been so relieved to hear the words "I'm sorry but on this occasion, you have been unsuccessful." I think that says it all.

So, what now? I wish I knew. I've applied for three more jobs, but they are similar roles to this one. I am not really sure what options are available to me. I could aim to go back into IT but it seems to be spectacularly unfriendly if you have a family. It was a struggle to go part-time in my previous role, and it seems that part-time roles in IT are almost non-existent unless you are already working for someone, which I'm not.

I'm qualified to teach adults but teaching hours are in very short supply. I'm also qualified in life and performance coaching but I don't really know where to start with that. And doesn't everybody groan these days if you say you're a life coach, although maybe if you're the sort that will only say super-positive things and annoy the heck out of people living in the real world.

And of course, I love doing this. Writing, messing around and doing stuff on my blog. And Twitter. I could turn it into something, but I am painfully aware that there is a lot of competition out there with far, far more experience and talent than I have.

It's all a balancing act.

I think I'm stuck. I do some casual self-employed work from home already but it really doesn't pay that well, certainly not enough to pay the bills. I know I need to find something that I enjoy and am passionate about, but it's balancing off with something that is achievable in terms of my experience and strengths, as well as being flexible enough to work around the children. My husband working shifts means I need to be around for school runs and I don't want to put them in childcare outside school.

I'd love to know what you think. Do you work flexibly? If so, what do you do and how did that come about? What wisdom can you share with me about finding something that's child-friendly AND rewarding/interesting? Or should I just stick to doing something soul-destroying but stable and perhaps work on something else in the meantime? All comments welcome.