Jamie’s menu for success is ‘perfick’

CHANNEL HOPPING:

ROUGHLY chopped “little babies”, stews with attitude and electric salads to die for. It sounds more the stuff of a Dickensian torture chamber than home cooking with a twist. Except, this was a Jamie Oliver twist.

“Jamie Does — Marrakech”, the chavvy chef’s first in a new series of cooking feasts from around the world, saw Oliver travel to Morocco on a whistle-stop tour of cuisine and culture.

It’s no wonder he only stayed for 48 hours. Channel 4’s new addition to Wednesday nights proved a visit to a North African meat market is truly to go back in time.

Oliver dragged an empty kettle-shaped pot around an outdoor shopping arcade in the searing heat while every man and his dog threw all and sundry into it for a knock-down price.

He then paid to have the concoction slow-cooked in the burning embers of a communal underground dungeon of an oven.

The pukka part here though was the Essex boy’s attempts to make himself understood to the French-speaking locals — pointing (quite a bit) and upping the old decibels (always helps). It was like watching Del Boy trying out new lines from a Gallic phrase book. Then came some impromptu pastry-making. “If it ain’t perfick, it don’t matter,” came the cry.

More to the point, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This was more of the same from Oliver — and why he’s made a chuffing good living out of it. Chuck in a bit of fresh scenery, wang it all up and hey Pesto — a new series.


NOT long out of the clink for extra-curricular activities with Rosie Webster, struck-off teacher John Stape is back in the classroom . . . as Colin Fishwick.

Corrie’s mastermind weirdo has really done his homework this time, assuming the identity of a former colleague in order to land a job at an out-of-town school. Surely only a matter of time before “Col’s” plan leaves him writing Dear John letters from detention again at Her Majesty’s pleasure.


Soap roar: East End gangster Phil’s reaction to his somewhat flamboyant son Ben’s Britney Spears routine in the front room. “Done up like some drag show Christmas dinner — dancing around like a proper Nancy.” That’s my boy!


Soap bore: Fatboy. Albert Square’s annoying answer to Ali G with a Sid James laugh. Not funny, not even a bit.