Mary Berry

We had Mary Berry come to talk at a WI event last year. She was funny, relaxed and was happy to chat to us individually. As they say 'there was no side to her' a thoroughly nice lady.

I think it's great to see (and let's be frank here - I think she's 79 this month) an old woman being given so much TV time and showing she's still up and running and has the gift of long experience to offer.

More and more middle-aged woman have been given opportunities, which is great, but this is pushing the boundaries even further.

More power to her hand whisk I say!

Didn't we used to have Delia? Isn't she just as good as Mary Berry? personally I don't like her way, it's too gushing. Like a few on GN I'd rather watch James Martin anyday! or Nigella.

Does anybody still have dinner parties any more? On the rare occasions that we have people round it's just a case of put the food on the table and everyone help themselves.
I have made two batches of the scones she made in the Tea Party programme and they were very yummy! Crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside.

Thank goodness for the demise of the dinner party - the scourge of the eighties. We only invite friends for lunch or barbecues now and they're very informal affairs.

I was criticising the menu, not Mary Berry particularly! It IS good to see an older woman in the public eye so successfully.

Oh yes, merlot I couldn't agree more!

Same here Merlot- all this keeping up with the Jonese was dreadful- hated every minute of it (sadly was expected..) - at least 2 or 3 of everything, choice of starters, lots of different veggies and at least 3 different pud - and that when we had small children and worked long hours ... NO MORE

In the Lakeland shop today, I found a plethora of products with MB's name on them. The Bake-off has certainly revived her brand.

Did you take your handbag, anno?

Ha, ha, kitty, that's below the belt! Yes I took my handbag. Only went in to get the powders for my Easy-yo yoghurt kit, but came out with a huge bag of stuff, like a new clothes peg container, screen wipes....etc.

I only dare go so often anno or I spend a fortune - I suspect going without one's handbag is the best idea.

Last time I went we took 2 DGC too - that saved a lot of money because I didn't have chance to look at anything! The Mary Berry stuff looked good though!

The only good thing about dinner parties was reading Jilly Cooper's hilarious accounts of hers.

Well I liked dinner parties, but I was doing them in the sixties and early seventies, before it became a competitive sport, not in the eighties. As long as you only invited people you really wanted to have and avoided the ones who would need to be impressed, and your menu was only one choice of each course, you could have some great evenings with friends. Nothing pretentious, just good food and good company.

It was a time of slightly more adventurous cooking than the fifties, and if you were interested in food you could be creative. I made lasagne and spaghetti bolognaise when they were foreign and exotic, salmon souffle with tinned salmon, creme caramels and far Breton. It was an excuse to use the nice wedding presents that stayed in the cupboard most of the time and try out recipes from cookbooks.

Just watching the Mary Berry cookery programme now, her nails are awful and would never be allowed in a professional kitchen, first thing I would have told her was cut your nails and ditch any jewelry, it would never have been allowed anywhere i have worked. Did you notice she told you to put the filo tarts on a flat baking sheet to re-heat but hers were still in the individual tart tray,,,,, mmmm, you may have soggy tarts if you put them on a flat tray as figs contain a lot of liquid. I would actually pre-heat the that tray not too much but just enough to crisp the filo so it doesn't go soggy.
Also hate to see Chefs cooking in 'outdoor' clothes, as on saturday kitchen, and all that bling, and they may be told to wash their hands when touching meat but they never wash them before they start, I could go on but DGS just woke up from his after lunch snooze, have a good weekend.

But, they are talking to home cooks felice. I don't think I've poisoned anyone yet but I cook wearing jewellery and outdoor clothes. I do wash my hands but probably not as much as a proper chef would.

She is supposed to be a professional and should be advancing good hygiene anywhere, at home or in a professional kitchen.

When I was at Catering college , we were told very strictly , not to wear nail polish !
if you think about it , it is totally correct as the polish could flake into the food .
hmmm

It's not just the flaking into the food, Nonu but nail varnish hides dirty nails unless it's clear.

People cooking at home just need to follow basic hygiene rules because they're not catering for the general public. Hand washing and clean surfaces were all that my grandmother worried about and we all survived.

nanKate - Keith Floyd had an astonishing ability to enthuse the viewer - you just had to go into the kitchen and COOK something after watching him -
and the simpler the recipe the better.

Right on merlot !

The first person to really enthuse me about cooking was Grahame Kerr the Galloping Gourmet. He always made cooking look such fun. I still use the Galloping Gourmet Scooper Scraped that I bought back then.

I would think Mary Berry has a professional nail job. That won't 'flake' off.

By request The Everyday Cookbook (in colour) by Marguerite Patten was my wedding present from my mother when I got married in 1970. She was then and still is now a great example of a really, really good cook. It is still my favourite cookery book and when my son left to go to university I scoured the charity shops until I found a copy for him to take with him (he was genuinely thrilled). Marguerite Patten will be a hundred years old next year, but many of her recipes are so simple that I think they will always stand the test of time.

I was well into my twenties before I realised she was call Marguerite. I thought her signature, sprawled across the covers of her books, was Parquerite Patten - a very exotic name

I like Mary Berry but she's a bit fancy for me - cakes and all that. I like Nigellas speedy way of doing things and currently Nigel Slater. If only we had a deli nearby.......