Wednesday 15 October 2008

Cooking demonstration etc.

OMG..where do I start with this one - things may not be as they seem!!!At the beginning, the cooking demonstration, we were in a, well how do I say this, shopping centre in Harrow we were never going to get customers there - well more than one anyway - so why not let the kids see some cooking and learn some stuff about food? I was not going to send them away! Fine move them over but not send them away!Forgetting the food didn't really matter, Russell was a super star and fought his way through the London traffic to get our food, came back and cooked! All the dishes got done in the time slot - we fixed it!!Back at the restaurant, what a shame they never show the good stuff we do, our restaurant was so fun and all our customers had a good time. We also made the most money again this weekend!The brownies were our way of carrying on the take away food service, it went down really well. People bought them to take home for the kids and to put in their lunch boxes. The mix up was due to no ticket being put in for the second order which was a big mistake so we made sure we fixed our system for the next week. When Raymond came to our restaurant I answered all his questions then he gave me a really hard time about the bloody aubergine so in the end I thought sod it and said they were not grown at the farm - 'they were' and I also know the aubergine season is July /August by the way. The variety we used is 'Violletti' which is an early ripening variety.In the room Raymond got 'a bit mixed up', there was a whole big argument that you don't see before I walked out - it was cut so when I walked out it is not because he had just said what ever he did on TV. I told him how disappointed I was in him and ended up getting an apology the next day once all the tapes of what happened had been gone through. The producers promised they would not show any of it but obviously they don't keep their promises (so never trust a producer!). At this point we were quite exhausted, we were putting our heart and soul into our restaurant - it meant so much to us to win!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

C'mon Michelle - just admit it - you're not as good as Nel's or True Provenence - just grow up and stop throwing your toys out of the pram!

Ian said...

well I thought it all seemed a bit odd - and Raymond was way over the top. Actually I thought he was out of order. You must know that they'll edit to get the best TV - which of course it is by a mile. I hope you guys win - but actually I think you're all stars - not just for the hard work and skill in the kitchen - but for biting your lip in front of le teacher! ;-)

Anonymous said...

'anonymous' is a true example of believing what you see on tv!!! you can see the programme has been cleverly edited to make things appear different to the true situation, well done michele for coming back at raymond with his provoking questions (at least they showed that bit!) i think the cheerful soul are by far the best and if you don't win then its just pantomime!! good luck

Gina said...

Not here so much, but whenever people say something to the effect that, "You must have known that you would be edited for reality TV", I usually don't think that people expect it to be done to the point where it distorts that reality when it comes to programmes for BBC2 - but that seems to be changing. Or maybe it is just becoming more apparent.

It's very disappointing to read of an editing of events that is tantamount to deceiving the viewer. It isn't possible to form an appropriate judgment if you mostly see the low spots but have no idea how much of a fraction of the overall good stuff they represent.

However, it's very interesting to have an insider reflecting on what happened to them and how they are represented.

The lesson from all this seems to be that participants should never, ever, trust producers, TV staff, journalists etc. Do they have any ethicists involved in overseeing the programme or have they given up with such superfluous luxuries?

Anonymous said...

I think one thing to remember all the way through the program is that you see really full restaurant for pretty much all of the series and 99% of people actually are paying full price for the food and drink that they are served. Under the circumstances of making a tv program I think everyone of the contestants has done a great job of running their restaurants under very difficult circumstances (i.e. challenges set at the last minute, etc). I think anonymous doesn't really know half of what went on.