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Ive never really liked cooking, to be honest with you. I mean, whats the point? You can buy biscuits and cakes and stuff,
why make them? Id rather spend my time watching Brookside, if Im honest with you.
However, ever since the age of
eight, I have been a bit of a Ready Steady Cook fan, after all, it combines three of the things I love best in the whole world:
food, games and Anthony Warrall-Thompson (Mmm, ginger cooks). For eight years I would shun the likes of Grange Hill and Byker
Grove (which was never any good after Ant and Dec left...sorry, thats a whole other issue) in favour of Fern and the gang
on RSC. Then, disaster struck: Fern left to get married to that cook whos far to young for her, and present This Morning.
I shed a tear or two, I can tell you. And then they wheeled out Ainsley Harriet. There is only one way I can protest (besides
writing angry letters to the BBC, which I have been banned from doing) and that is by turning off.
But somehow there
was a void in my life.
It was briefly filled, in the summer months, by Nigella Lawson, but although she made food,
and great food at that, there was an element of fun missing from her programme: no price limit (Im afraid, Anna, that you
have over spent by four pence...Youll have to give up one of your onions, Im afraid...) no flashing clocks, or funky theme
music (dun-dun-dun dun-dun-dun da-dun-dun) which told us that time is running out! No countdown from the audience and no feeling
that just perhaps, this time, the cook wouldnt get the marmite and carrot voul-e-vants finished in twenty minutes.
That
was when I discovered the unmistakable, Jamie Oliver. Of course, hes been around for ages, but I never really sat down and
watched him until, one evening, when finding out that Brookside had been moved yet again, I, in my desperation flicked over
to BBC2. The sights! The sounds! Oooh! He cooked good food, on a shoestring, AND he had fun with it (Yknow, that bit where
he goes out on his scooter and finds a Russian off licence which sells GENUINELY HANDMADE Vodka, for his Vodka n Spam fritters).
I became a Jamie Oliver addict, watching him on BBC2 on Tuesday nights, and every evening on BBC Choice, UK+, UK Style and
UK Food. I adopted the Jamie way of thinking, and no longer felt the need to eat anything but leafy green salads and sexy
shallots. I was the happiest girl in Christendom, until just a few mornings ago.
I was late getting up, as ever,
and at 8am lumbered into the kitchen to make some toast.
"Alright Lorz?" My dad enquired.
"Top-notch,
me old man," I said, in an accent more suited to a "barra" boy from Pitsy market, "Cept I just urt me
old bonce comin daaan the apples and pears." My dad just nodded, perhaps hoping he was hallosinating. "Me old fruit,"
I began, as my sister washed up her cutlery, "Ave you nabbed the last Jack?" Rachel looked at me puzzled.
"Jack?"
she said.
"Yeah, yknow me old skin and blister, a Jack the Ripper? Kipper!"
"You hate kippers."
She said.
"Top-notch." I responded.
Five minutes later a piece of toast popped out of the toaster,
and still I was prancing around like a mockney.
"Blimey," I said to the imaginary camera crew, "Thats
a sexy bit a toast, innit, jublley!" The imaginary camera crew laughed and the fun of it all. "Nah, I fink its time
we introduced Tommy toast to Belinda Butta? Innit!" I spread some Olivio onto my toast, and left the kitchen.
That
was when it hit me: I had just become another statistic. I couldnt even make toast without saying "jublley". I had
somehow learnt cockney rhyming slang, overnight. All the signs pointed to one thing: I was one of the many growing number
of JOAs or Jamie Oliver Addicts, as we are known in the uneducated circles. My friend Charlotte is a victim, and I dare say
you know scores of people who are suffering from this terrible condition, but who are too afraid to ask for help. You know
who youre thinking about, right now. Has this person ever done any of the following:
1) Referred to you as "Me
old fruit", "Me old skin and blister", "Me old bricks and Mortar", "Me old barrel a fun".
2) Told you that they are going into the people devoid kitchen to make some toast, and then heard them chatting away.
3) Cooked you a meal, and then given it a title. E.g.: "Susans Sexy Spag Bol".
4) Insisted that
they have to have ingredients from Sainsburys.
Or
5) Declared that they "Just love" Toploaders album
but only ever listen to "Dancing in the Moonlight".
If your friend or relation had ever displayed any
of the following symptoms, they could well be a JOA. Anything upwards of three is verging on obsession, and they really should
see someone.
I hope that this piece will make awareness of JOA far more widespread, and perhaps make you think twice
before you buy someone that Jamie Oliver cookbook for Christmas.
Jamie Oliver Must Die http://www.hairytongue.com/news/jamieolivermustdie.exe
As recommended by ezine "The Friday Thing" (Go to wwww.thefridaything.co.uk to subscribe to their hilarious free
ezine, or, indeed pay 10 a year to subscribe to their F List- trust me, it's well worth the money).
"....We've
always been big fans of Jamie 'mockney kitchen gimp' Oliver, but, as it's nearly Christmas, we're prepared to have some fun
at his expense - just this once. The idea is simple: take Jamie.. and torture him. For hours. Thaaaat's entertainment..."
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