aesthetik Grate Expectations

When it comes to televisual culinary masters we have witnessed several triumphs and several defeats (See what I did with the title, not great as in great, but grate as in cheese, Gemma you're a winner). Recently, it seems, there have been two main schools of thought.

We like our women in the guise of a burlesque homemaker with a soft pout and a whisk. Our men are best served aggressively grinding garlic cloves and the aspirations of their sub-ordinates to a fine paste whilst baring the expression that can only be alikened to an angry testicle.

For this article I am choosing to concentrate on the male side of the stove top celebrity menu.

There are elements of every tv chef that we love. However it is those same attributes that often herald their demise.

Example, the good tv watching public gushed over the loveable conductor of the cooking against the clock afternoon express, Ainsley Harriot. We couldn't get enoughof his jovial end of the pier innuendos. "We all love a bit of (insert food name here) don't we ladies and gentlemen?" was a common one.

This adorable delivery later fell on deaf ears when we realised it was shit and had nothing to do with making a souffle. We needed something more.

Enter Jamie Oliver, cooler than a cucumber in a rustic salad with the added care free attitude of a gap year student. With Jamie we went all kinds of rustic. We were in our kitchens throwing our food together with gay abandon. No presentation needed. By the time he finished with us, we were serving our loved ones a crime scene of chicken and wild rocket drizzled with olive oil and who gives a fuck.

soon became the champion of children and vegetables and knitted sweaters and drum kits and that's where people started to tire of their love affair.

Soon the kitchen was transformed into The Thunder Dome and so entered the commander known as Ramsey. We lapped this up. Hollandaise preparation whilst screaming the word c£$% at anybody in ear shot. Week after week, anybody stupid enough to enter the arena of conflict would end up broken and dejected. Nothing lasts though. Surprisingly, it turns out we didn't want to watch our pesto making class with unending side dishes of f&%ks and s£&ts. It was migraine enducing.

We needed magic, and like magic the Willy Wonker of Fine Dining did appear. Heston Blumenthal. Young, handsome, doesn't replace every second word with an expletive. He las a wonderful element of sarcasm, he turns shephards pie into Cirque Du Soleil. Heston was responsible for the creation of lickable wallpaper, the re-invention of Little Chef, the widespread use of liquid nitrogen as a kitchen utensil, like an ice-cream scoop capable of scarring you for life.

And so we are up to the here and now. I am aware of the daytime chefs, we will not discuss them. We have voiced our support and our dissatisfaction in equal measure, I do hope that we continue to embrace Heston though. He makes everything fun. He is dragging us all kicking and screaming into 2012.

No to f$%ks and s&%ts. Yes to magic lasagne that actually turns out to be a black forest gateau.