Frankfurt Book Fair

The poet T. S. Eliot famously said that his life had been measured out with coffee spoons. I, on the other hand, have measured out mine with plane journeys. I’ve flown nearly a dozen times during the past fortnight. Frankly, I’m sick of flying.

However, I’m going to have to lump it because later this week I jet off yet again for the Frankfurt Book Fair. This annual event is, not to put too fine a point on it, a big deal. Lasting five days and attracting more than a quarter of a million visitors, it provides the likes of me with a critical marketing exercise. It’s a vital opportunity for me to secure international publishing rights for my series of cookbooks so the pressure is on.

The James McIntosh Series of Cookbooks

Winning a golden pair of Gourmand awards continues to pay dividends. I am one of a small handful of chefs who have been invited to present at the fair. Chef Wan, who I have mentioned before, will be there, as will Chakall. These names may not be instantly recognisable here in the UK, but they are held in very high esteem on the international stage. To be ranked amongst their number is a true privilege. I know that I talk about this a lot, but I cannot tell you how flattering and humbling it is to be invited to such a prestigious event.

For those of you who are interested, I will be demoing:

• Yellow Tail King Fish with Saffron Aioli (from Mix.)
• Christmas Syllabub with mixed nuts (from Mix.)
• Raspberry and White Chocolate muffins (from Mix.)
• Pork with Mustard and Apple (from Dinner.)
• Orange and Chicory Salad (from Veg.)
• Marmalade cake (from Cake.)

If you are interested in purchasing the rights, best contact Jamie McOuat  +447740631424 or jmcouat@brookes.ac.uk

I’ll update you with more when I’m back!

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I predict a maggot, I predict a maggot….

Mangosteen straight from the tree, yummy

The idea of being filmed sounds fine until you’re actually being filmed. You can fool yourself into thinking that you have perfect poise and clipped, clear diction, but that’s before you’re standing in front of a team of people brandishing cameras, lights and booms. You’re expected to act naturally, yet at the same time you’re receiving directions to do and say things you might not otherwise do and say. All of a sudden your legs become filled with jellied eels, your tongue swells to three times its regular size, and your arms become strangers, flailing and flapping about like those tall balloons you see outside car showrooms.

I became accustomed to the idea pretty quickly. After a few takes, I started to relax and forget that the cameras, lights and booms were there at all. This was greatly helped by my genial co-presenters,

Dumplings ready to steam

with whom I struck up a relaxed bonhomie after approximately half a day of filming. One of them is a genuine celebrity in China – seriously, I can’t emphasise just how revered he is amongst his abundance of followers. He is mobbed – and I mean mobbed – in the street on a regular basis. It was like witnessing Beatlemania firsthand.

The filming schedule was a strange and varied beast. Some days we kicked off very early in the morning, others we were called just before lunch. I thrive on routine, so it was odd to adapt to the absence of routine – or rather, a higgledy-piggledy routine. Even then it’s amazing how quickly you become acclimatised to a new way of doing things. For example, I had a tour guide who carried my luggage. Now, as far as I see it, I was blessed with two arms and hands, so I am more than capable of lugging about my own bags. He wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, however, and I was scared to offend him. When I travel further afield, I’m constantly wary of breaking that country’s rules of etiquette, so it seemed much simpler to allow my guide to be a glorified bellhop, no matter how embarrassing and awkward I found it.

THE maggot

If I’m honest, I found mealtimes more of a struggle. There were moments when I was tempted to throw etiquette to one side for the good of my stomach. I ate donkey (amongst other things),  (something I suspected only existed in comics, along with Desperate Dan’s cow pie) and jellyfish, neither of which I would recommend or wish to consume again. Chicken, meanwhile, is served with the head still attached – complete with comb. On one memorable occasion, I arrived at a restaurant where I was told we would be served traditional “peasant food”. This turned out to be maggots. Yes, that’s right: maggots. The very same wriggling, twisting larvae with which fishermen bait their lines. I was not – pardon the pun – hooked.

I ate some wonderful food in China, and I ate some truly horrific food. The hardest part was that I could never predict what kind would greet me when I sat down at the dining table. Therefore, each mealtime was preceded by nervous tension and loin-girding as I psyched myself up for eating some unidentifiable foodstuff – sometimes it was better not to be able to tell what was in front of me.

That said, we could all learn a great deal from Chinese hospitality. I was regularly humbled by the warmth and courtesy shown to me by their hosts. And I was forced to remind myself that while I was turning my nose up at the gloop filling my bowl, this was perhaps all they could afford. In fact, on several occasions this was more than they could afford. It pained me to realise how much I craved a McDonalds – there was one outlet on every corner of most towns and cities. I was surrounded by a ancient culture so rich and deep it would take me ten trips to barely scratch its surface, and I was hankering after a plastic, disposable burger. Shame on me.

I could daily feel myself inching out of my own self-imposed comfort zone. This is always a good thing, no matter how many maggots you need to eat to get there.

More to follow…..

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Lost in China

There is something undeniably exciting about travelling. I have racked up more air miles than Judith Chalmers, but I still get giddy-hearted jitters the night before I leave. I could pack my suitcase or kitbag in my sleep, but I always get wobbly-kneed at the thought of getting on a plane and flying off to pastures new and far away. I consider myself very fortunate in that I have seen most of what there is to see of the world. I have criss-crossed the continents, trotted the globe, and been pretty much everywhere you are told you should go by those articles in magazines which are titled “100 Places To Visit Before You Die”. If having a lot of stamps in your passport really was the road to contentment, I could die a happy man.

Or so I thought. Before I went to China, travelling was becoming something of a chore. Far-flung countries were beginning to lose part of their appeal, and the routine of packing no longer held the same frisson as it once did – you would be surprised at how riveting rolling socks up into a ball can be when you know you will be unravelling them in Jamaica. Work demanded that I travelled a lot, so much so that when I lay asleep in my London bed – or rather, trying to sleep – I could still hear the whistling, growling sound of the turbines.

Birds Nest Olympic Stadium, Beijing

Travelling to China changed all that. It blew out the cobwebs, loosened up the joints, warmed up my heart and reignited my enthusiasm for discovery. It was like diving to the bottom of a swimming pool, holding my breath for a few moments, then resurfacing to see that the world had radically changed. Everything, from the feeling of the wind on your bare arms to the crunch of the gravel walkway beneath your shoes, feels different. You feel at once displaced and strangely at home. Things seem alien yet familiar, like putting on a jumper which has been worn by someone else with different proportions than you.

The first thing to point out is just how large China truly is. There is no scale which can measure the sense of wonder which engulfs you when you step off the plane and trundle into Beijing airport. The new terminal at Beijing, built for the Olympics, is the largest in the world and it is stunning. I felt dizzy looking up at the intricate, almost infinite expanse of glass, neon and metal. Unfortunately, although Beijing may win the trophy in the size stakes, but it seems that it is still pretty careless when it comes to baggage handling. After touchdown, my TV co-presenter, discovered that his bags did not make the connection. I find this quite amusing for the few moments that I discover that the TV producer has not turned up either. We board the next plane to Xi’an, to find out we are booked on the wrong flight.  We are, in fact, 1,000 km from where we need to be.  In future I will always use Trail finders who have flown me around the world in the past and have never made a mistake with me before.

Thankfully, a lady in the airport’s only restaurants can speak almost impeccable English. She arranges new flights for the both of us as well as booking a hotel at the next airport. The whole debacle seems incredibly funny to us, but at this stage jetlag has been taking hold for a good few hours. I am not entirely sure if I am in London, China or the Land of Nod. We walk to our car, laughing – slightly manically, I now remember – and head off.

My Chinese adventure has begun.


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The Silk Road

Eating a pig's tail in a Chinese market

Warmest greetings from the Far East! Yes, I can finally let the cat out of the bag – or at the very least poke its paws and tail out a bit – and let you know where I’ve been for the past few weeks, and what I’ve been up to since I’ve been there.

Since I left the home comforts of London, I’ve been travelling around China, presenting an exciting new cookery series. Not just for my own amusement, you understand, but one that will be broadcast on television. Yes, you read that correctly. Actual television! I still can’t quite believe it myself. I can’t divulge too many of the details as present, but I can feed you a few tasty morsels.

Being fed chilli, I hate chilli!

I share screen time with two other chefs, each of whom has become a very good friend over the past weeks. It’s funny how close people become when they are working day in, day out in a new country. If, like me, you struggle with a culture who do not use a Roman alphabet and who seem to speak twenty words between each breath, you will latch onto anything and anyone who seems at all friendly.

Although the theme of the show is cooking connected to the “Silk Road”, I have been afforded the privilege of seeing and experiencing a wide variety of what China has to offer. I have seen the sights most tourists would pay a great deal of money to see, but I have also been led off the beaten path to the more unusual nooks and crannies which your average traveller would overlook. I have to say that I have been disappointed, surprised and overwhelmed in equal measures. When you are a fish out of water – a very tired and emotional fish – it is as if your senses have been perceptibly heightened, and you are more attuned to joy and sadness than if you were visiting something as comparatively mundane as, say, the London Eye. China, in short, is spectacular. I am blown away daily by how one country can contain so many different walks of life: there is great affluence and there is great poverty; there is an incredibly rich history and there are new technological beginnings; there is the hectic thrum of the city, and there is the gentle chirp of the country. It would take me a lifetime to view it all, never mind the time that would be required to process it all afterwards.

Cooking at the banks of the Yellow River

And as for the food… well, let’s just say my tastebuds have been delighted and assaulted in equal measure. I have eaten things I never thought I would eat, some of which I shall pine for when I return to England, and others – well, there are things which should never be allowed near a menu, as far as I’m concerned.

I have so much more to tell, but I am wary of boring you too much with my travelogues. Once I start the ball rolling, I don’t know when to stop. Therefore, I’m going to start posting regular, bite-sized travelogues from China. Short, sharp, sweet and sour portions from the other corner of the world.

Stay tuned.

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It’s Been An Odd Few Days…

I didn’t want to start this latest dispatch on a melodramatic note, but please indulge me: if you never see or hear from me again, thank you for your patience, your hospitality and, above all, for buying the books. In case you didn’t already know, at the end of this week I am jetting off to an exotic location to work on a fantastic new project. I can’t give away too much about it, so let’s just say that it is further than the corner shop and not as distant as the moon. Seriously though, it is far-flung enough for me to worry about it: the length of my journey; how I will cope with the culture when I get there; and the million and one things on my to do list I must strike off before I finally get comfortable on the airplane.

I realise I am beating around the proverbial bush here, but this is for good reason. I really cannot talk about what I am doing for the following four weeks. No, I am not becoming a guest at Her Majesty’s pleasure; and no, I am not joining the Secret Service, but nonetheless if I let the cat out of the bag I would have to kill you.

Well, maybe not. I would struggle to snap a twiglet let alone engage in fisticuffs with a grown man, but for the final time: no, I can’t tell you what’s happening. If you did inveigle me to spill the beans, I wouldn’t kill you, but I would have to give you a stern dressing down.

In all seriousness, I would love to reveal more. I have never been less than honest with you during this past year of blogging. Sometimes, I should say, to my own detriment: during these times of financial insecurity, it is difficult to admit one’s own shortcomings and personal failures. Particularly as so much of my business is tied up with my family and my heritage. They are as intrinsically linked as salt and pepper, lemon and lime, sugar and spice… to the extent that whenever I pitch my business or redraft my biography it is difficult not to stop and reflect upon the long and emotionally cobbled road that has led me to this point. Maybe I am being overly analytical, a bout of stock-taking prompted by the fact that my life is about to undergo another seismic shift, but do believe me when I tell you that there is rarely any spin to my blog entries. I don’t want to impress you, or make you think that I am someone I am not – I am merely writing about my life.

James McIntosh Series

Again, friend, this is why I would like to tell you everything. As if we were sitting down for a coffee at a table in a comfortable, sun-dappled tea room and I was blethering (Nothern Irish word for chatting too  much) away as usual. All I will say is that this project is very, very exciting, that it could be a big deal for me, both personally and professionally, and that I am very flattered to have been offered it. In many ways, along with my appearance at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, it represents the culmination of everything that I have been working towards all these years. I would not be so naïve as to use the term “Big Break”, as if I had just dazzled Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole with my (cough, cough) singing prowess but like I said, it is a very big deal.

Speaking of Cheryl Cole, I’ve recently fallen in love. With my brand new iPhone 3Gs. Seriously, when I’m not browsing for new downloads from the App Store, I’m updating my address book or fiddling with iTunes. You know, generally being the annoying friend who doesn’t listen to what you’re saying but focuses all their attention on their latest toy. Well, that’s me. I used to have a Blackberry, but I found pastry was getting stuck in the jog wheel, so I moved to an iPhone as its ‘wipe clean”.  Really, it’s been an epiphany. I would say that it has changed my life if it didn’t sound so ridiculous. I feel like a new man, just like Alexander Graham Bell must have done when he first devised the telephone (Yes, I realise there is some debate over whether the famous Scotsman is really responsible for the invention; it’s only an analogy).

Ross Thompson

But how does this relate to Cheryl Cole, you might ask? Well, like all good gadgets, the iPhone saves you the trouble of actually using any of your digits. Thanks to voice recognition software, just think of the number of kilojoules you will save by not having to press a few buttons. However, last week when I fancied listening to some silly, feelgood pop music, I held up the receiver and clearly said, “Play Girls Aloud”. To my surprise, and presumably to his too, the iPhone starting calling my old university friend Ross Thompson. I don’t know why this happened. I can’t explain it. “Girls Aloud” does not sound remotely like “Ross Thompson”, even with my clanging stone jug of a Northern Irish accent. And, as far as I know, Ross was never a member of a pop group, let alone one comprising solely of skinny, leggy ladies.  But, at univesity Ross was rather famous for his late night jamming sessions on his guitar singing a song he wrote about Sandra Bullock.  ‘Sandra B, oh Sandrah B……’

It’s been a strange time of year all round. Pretty soon I’ll have to start thinking about writing my Christmas recipes, even though the festive season is just under four months away. The very thought of that makes me shudder. I detailed my loathing of the Christmas rush in last year’s blog, Novocaine And Turkeys, so I shall refrain from ranting again here. Suffice to say it’s soul destroying carting a fowl-filled bucket up and down the motorway at all hours of the morning – both ends. In my line of work, I’m away before the sun rises and home after it sets, so I do feel as if I am living the life of a vampire, albeit one who inhabits shopping centres and Aga outlets.

Further, my two new cookbooks, veg. and cake. will soon be released, but they will ship after I have jetted off to the place which I cannot talk about. Therefore, you will be in the strange position of seeing the final product before I do. Again, as I look at the four books placed together, I can’t help feeling this marks the end of a very long and tiring road, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey. It is moments like this that make months of hard work worthwhile. I’m just sorry that I can’t be there to savour that moment, that’s all.

(Incidentally, if you line up the spines, as one might do with Roger Hargreaves’ Mr Men books, a kitchen implement should magically appear before your eyes. Try it.)

There’s so much more to say, but I’m wary of taking up too much of your time. A lunch break is only so long, and you still might have the medium Sudoku to do. I could tell you all about how I recently met up with the lovely Emma Jones from Enterprise Nation TV – I travelled up to her house in Shrewsbury to do a piece on making muffins for the busy home worker – and I could fill you in about an upcoming film premiere in London that I hope to attend with someone pretty special. But time is tight, and my to do list isn’t getting any shorter.

While I’m away, I’m hoping that I can keep you up to speed by tweeting away on Twitter, and by changing my FaceBook status every now and then. At this point, however, I’m not even sure if I will have access to the Internet at all – for a man who compulsively checks his messages approximately two hundred times a day, you can imagine that this will come as quite the shock to the system. In any case, if I do go incommunicado for several weeks, don’t worry too much about me.

Well, maybe just a little bit.

Lets chat again in October

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