Thursday 1 May 2008

One Perfect Ingredient launch - April 2008




‘One Perfect Ingredient’ launched two weeks ago at an extravagant party that we hosted at The Berkeley with our publishers Dorling Kindersley; it was fabulous to have such support from family, friends and acquaintances. The Ballroom at The Berkeley was a stunning setting and thank you Alan at Metzendorff for the wonderful Bollinger champagne! Have a look at a few of the photos; Marcus with Mary Clare and Monika of DK; Jane and Marcus ;book signing

As part of the promotions organised by Alex at DK, I have been invited to cook on the daily TV show ‘This Morning’, twice; each time appearing with my old friend and adversary Angela Hartnett.

The cooking was in the form of a competition, the winner chosen by guests on the show; I am relieved to say I won on both occasions, she would never have let me live it down if not! First week I cooked a simple but tasty lamb and mushroom focaccia and the second week cooked the ultimate vegetarian brunch – not my usual style of cooking but fun none the less.

I will be on Saturday Kitchen on 3rd May – my son is not too impressed as I will miss his football for the second week in a row, last week it was Radio 5live, and to make it worse he scored! I shall be cooking lamb hotpot a recipe from the book, I wonder if I can improve my time on the omelette challenge this week.

I recently attended a charity event hosted by Atul Kochhar at Benares in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity; it was fascinating to learn about the various projects that are underway to make the lives of the sick children and their families a little easier. Thankfully it is not something I have experienced personally but perhaps I can do something in the future to benefit the children.

Pétrus continues to be busy despite the many rumours of the economic downturn in the UK. We regularly change our menus to make use of the seasonal items; just started to use English asparagus and morel mushrooms again, summer is here!