Cookalong Live: The Series Gordon Ramsay in the hot seat

Date Published:

20/10/2008

As we prepare for the new series of Cookalong: The series, Gordon talks about the French, celebrity dinner parties – and what he really thinks of Jamie Oliver's campaigns

So Cookalong is back and each week there's going to be a celebrity guest – who've you got lined up?

Well we'll be confirming nearer the time but Chris Moyles is not coming back – I confirm that, he's had his chance plus the kitchen isn't big enough. James Cordon is on, I think. A nice line up, plus something a bit naughty that I'm not allowed to say. It'll make sense when you see it.

You've cooked with a lot of celebrities now, who's the best and who's the worst?

Geri Halliwell's meatballs were shocking. The best - I have to say Max Beasley was cool. He's a frustrated chef (is Max). He's an obsessed foodie, he knows every Michelin starred restaurant in the country, who the chefs are, how often they change their menu - and in LA he's a nightmare, he only wants to go to restaurants with a Michelin star.

Will it be like last year - will you be cutting to people outside as well? Do you find that easy to cope with?

Yes ,we're having a section of maybe 12 or 15 webcams and live strands running across. I’m used to standing on the hot plate and controlling 18 or 19 chefs co-ordinating what they're making within four minutes. My job is to bring it together. It's like a conductor conducting everyone in harmony, it's synchronised and timed to perfection, it's exactly the same with Cookalong. I like going live; I'm at my best.

What about your kids? Are they going to be involved with the Cookalong?

Jack's going to be cooking along live, he's allowed to stay up on Friday night. He's going to be doing it with Megan, Tilly's going to do the table, so it's going to be quite interesting.

You and Jamie Oliver have taken different approaches to teaching the nation to cook; what do you think of those different approaches?

I’m very aware that everyone is especially conscious about spending at the moment so there’s a Cookalong credit crunch dinner for example, it's £10 for four. We’ll have a seventies night, a curry night… Cookalong is about making cooking less intimidating, not trying to climb a mountain before we can walk. It's cooking for 4 not 4000. So essentially we share the same objective of encouraging people to try cooking for themselves.

I'm not trying to diminish the value of going out to eat, with 19 restaurants. I'm just trying to give a great alternative without people thinking that it’s an overcomplicated set up.

I always look at the situation with my big sister. She's married with three children, she works as a care assistant, she hasn't got £200 a week to spend on food, nothing of the sort. So all her friends are excited about doing Cookalong because there's cost saving exercises as well. We're doing an amazing lasagne, a great soup and a phenomenal dessert and all for £10.

But when you see a list of utensils that's six inches long don't you think that's quite intimidating?

A lot of people have equipment in their homes but they don’t know what to do with it. From the feedback on the website from the last Cookalong, we know that people really engaged with preparing in advance and took advantage of all the information about utensils, ingredients, training videos on the website. This time round we’re making it even more accessible.

Do you think Jamie's idea of ‘pass it on’ was a good idea in terms of people teaching other people?

I think it's going to be a good idea if it continues without the scrutiny of the cameras, that's where Jamie will pick up the biggest plaudits. The Fifteen Foundation is still going brilliantly well, the School Dinners campaign is still ongoing. The key to continuing success is having an infrastructure to continue rolling out the plan; a continuing support mechanism across the country.

Do you think people are frightened of cooking?

Partly frightened and part lazy, to be honest, because of how easy it is to buy dinner without any hassle. But what I'd like is people to spend two or three nights a week eating only home-cooked, good food. I grew up with the Galloping Gourmet and it was fascinating theatre and I was adamant it got taped before I went to play football so I could come home and watch it - because it was live and it was interesting. It's not cooking with fillets of beef and loads of fois gras and truffles from Alba, it's mainstream exciting stuff.

You mentioned the Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Foundation - do you have anything like that?

Well next year we launch the academy. We bought the Tante Marie Cooking School last year, it was the first ever cooking school established in the country; sadly it was experiencing huge problems so we bought it and we're re-launching it and then hoping to move into a much bigger exciting academy for food and wine at the end of next year.

Do you ever worry about spreading yourself too thin?

No. The idea behind Tante Marie is that we are developing our own fast-track training programme. I want to get something together on a national grid in terms of bringing back a modern day apprentice, help reenergise and refocus what young chefs want to do earlier in their careers. It happens in sport, it happened with Michel Owen and Wayne Rooney playing for England at the age of 16. The old farts condemned it but if we go on to win the World Cup it'll be the best move they ever made. I have to do that with chefs. If you're good enough to run a Michelin starred kitchen at the age of 25, then you get dropped in the coal face. That's the idea behind the academy: to really try and energise a traditional approach.