Tag Archives: five fat hens

Cookbooks vs youtube

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A friend came round just after Christmas with his wife and children – a chance to tidy up the last of the turkey, exchange little presents, that sort of thing. We got chatting about food, and he told me about how just recently his sixteen year old son had wanted some custard of an evening – apparently he is quite a fan of Bird’s Custard Powder (who isn’t). They had run out, and the shops were all closed, so he decided to make it himself, from eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. Now I have to admit I thought this was turning into one of those stories, that goes “so we pulled out your book Five Fat Hens, read through the recipe and cooked the best custard ever.” I assure you all food-writers live for such moments.

“So,” he continued “we just went into the kitchen with his iphone, looked up a recipe-demo for custard on YouTube and got on with it.” I tried not to let my bottom lip start trembling, I may have just got away with it, just. I’m not sure. I asked the son if it had been better than Bird’s?

“Yes it was,” but he thought it “quite a hassle”. Would he make it again?

“Yes.” Now he’d done it once he knew the recipe right? “Well, err, no – but no problem – I’ll just look it up on YouTube next time I need it.”

And that is the problem. If I read something in a book, then it gets stuck in my mind – I don’t know how, but it does. If I see it on the television, YouTube, telephone, whatever, then I don’t really remember it. It is no more a long-term memory than the recipes I saw some telly-chef knocking-up last year.

Books; they’re good to learn stuff from.

New Year – New Blog

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My new year’s resolutions:
Don’t keep putting things off (like starting this blog).
Cook everything that The Saladman brings (he delivers a weekly veg-box every Friday).
Other than that, it’s just the usual guff about restraint, compassion, helpfulness and other such niceties.

At the end of last year my publisher, Anne at Grub Street, cajoled and persuaded me to take up twittering. I honestly believe that the contract for my second book landing on my doormat shortly after my first twitterings was an unrelated matter – purely coincidental timing. Anyway, it turns out I didn’t need to be afraid of twitter, and I even enjoy it, on most occasions. Twitter is quite a busy forum for foodwriters so I’m feeling right at home there. I’ll get a link and a feed to my twitterings up on this site as soon as I can figure out the techie stuff.

The other person in my professional life is Juliet. We’ve started a little fledgling TV production company together. She wants me to “blog and build a web-presence”. I’ll have to look that up. Our plan is simply to make some brilliant TV shows. Inevitably these’ll have an emphasis on food, and there’s already a couple of things in the “pre-production” stage. I will be in some of the shows. It’s very exciting. We’re also taking a micro-crew to Budapest at the end of January to film some showreel footage and do some rehearsals. I expect bits of that will get posted on here in time.

Whilst food writing is necessarily autobiographical (how can I possibly write about food and recipes if I haven’t experienced, cooked and eaten it all myself first), I’m not terribly comfortable writing about myself in a broader sense. So by way of an introduction, here is the blurb from the back of my first book Five Fat Hens, I haven’t changed a word, which explains the slightly out of place (on a blog) use of third person narrative:

Tim Halket was born in Bromsgrove in 1967. Aged ten his family moved to Cambridge. He left school at sixteen with few formal qualifications and worked for a while as a draughtsman. He met his future wife, Annie, on his seventeenth birthday. In his early twenties he opened an art gallery in Cambridge, later enrolling at the Architectural Association to study Architecture. He has spent his recent years as a full-time house-husband and fits his writing in around his children’s needs. Throughout his life food has remained a constant comfort and he continues to write about food, whether it is for his local parish magazine or his next book. Any spare time is spent with his family and friends or trying to keep his old sportscars on the road. He lives in Suffolk with his wife and three children. He cooks for them everyday.

So plenty to do, and it will get done eventually. Recipes, food issues, video clips and general ramblings – all regularly updated. So please keep coming back, or sign up for automatic notifications (just as soon as I’ve figured that bit out).