Damn that Thomasina Miers.
Damn her. I've been trying (and failing, mostly) to stick to a healthy diet recently. I'm religiously eating a grapefruit a day - it worked for Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan, although I'm guessing she didn't accompany it with a full-fat coffee and toast. And I'm even, gulp, foregoing booze (during the week, anyway).
But now my resolve is completely shot. I am sad to report that today I WILL attempt to make the innocent-sounding but evil-looking torta that stole the show in Mexican Food Made Simple (7.30pm, Channel 5, 26 July). A kind of Mexican club sandwich, the torta is apparently the spectator 'snack' of choice in Mexican wrestling, or Lucha Libre, arenas. It looked phenomenalicious!
The rolls (Miers used a ciabatta in her version) contained a gut-busting concoction of refried beans, avocado, griddled chorizo, red onion, mayonnaise, lettuce leaves and salsa. Indeed, so ample was the filling that she scooped out the bread from the top half of the roll to accommodate it! What's not to like?
Actually, you could say the same of the series as a whole. I may be overreaching slightly, but Miers reminds me a bit of the late great Floyd in her genuine interest in the people she meets, her enthusiastic but amateurish presentation style (could there have been more shots of her gleefully stuffing her face?) and her exciting and novel recipes (if you're not Mexican, that is).
This is cookery travelogue as it used to be before the Steins, Ramsays and Olivers of this world refined and polished the format to within an inch of its life.
Not that I don't like Stein's latest effort (Rick Stein's Spain, 8pm, BBC2, 28 July): he seems to have rediscovered his mojo after a couple of so-so series. And not that Mexican Food Made Simple was by any means perfect, either. The constant references to Oaxaca, in particular, grated (Miers was ostensibly talking about the region of Mexico she was in, but Wahaca is also the name of her restaurant chain).
And what was with the cartouche wouldn't a lid have been simpler? But on the whole, this hit the mark even if the wrestling arena nosh did leave me wrestling with my conscience as far as the diet goes.
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Damn her. I've been trying (and failing, mostly) to stick to a healthy diet recently. I'm religiously eating a grapefruit a day - it worked for Natalie Portman's character in Black Swan, although I'm guessing she didn't accompany it with a full-fat coffee and toast. And I'm even, gulp, foregoing booze (during the week, anyway).
But now my resolve is completely shot. I am sad to report that today I WILL attempt to make the innocent-sounding but evil-looking torta that stole the show in Mexican Food Made Simple (7.30pm, Channel 5, 26 July). A kind of Mexican club sandwich, the torta is apparently the spectator 'snack' of choice in Mexican wrestling, or Lucha Libre, arenas. It looked phenomenalicious!
The rolls (Miers used a ciabatta in her version) contained a gut-busting concoction of refried beans, avocado, griddled chorizo, red onion, mayonnaise, lettuce leaves and salsa. Indeed, so ample was the filling that she scooped out the bread from the top half of the roll to accommodate it! What's not to like?
Actually, you could say the same of the series as a whole. I may be overreaching slightly, but Miers reminds me a bit of the late great Floyd in her genuine interest in the people she meets, her enthusiastic but amateurish presentation style (could there have been more shots of her gleefully stuffing her face?) and her exciting and novel recipes (if you're not Mexican, that is).
This is cookery travelogue as it used to be before the Steins, Ramsays and Olivers of this world refined and polished the format to within an inch of its life.
Not that I don't like Stein's latest effort (Rick Stein's Spain, 8pm, BBC2, 28 July): he seems to have rediscovered his mojo after a couple of so-so series. And not that Mexican Food Made Simple was by any means perfect, either. The constant references to Oaxaca, in particular, grated (Miers was ostensibly talking about the region of Mexico she was in, but Wahaca is also the name of her restaurant chain).
And what was with the cartouche wouldn't a lid have been simpler? But on the whole, this hit the mark even if the wrestling arena nosh did leave me wrestling with my conscience as far as the diet goes.
More from this column
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