China

You may recall some time ago in 2009 I was in China co-presenting a TV series for China Food TV about Food Adventures on the Silk Road.

Well, have a look, the preview is out! And its on air in China too…

Let’s hear it for New York – London, Belfast and …..

Looking back through old blogs, and reflecting upon the thousands of words scribbled here, I’ve begun to realise something. There are two recurrent themes in my writing: food and travel. These, one could argue, are your most basic human imperatives. I might complain about it, but I’ve always felt the need to go exploring, to discover new worlds – brave or otherwise.This urge gives my life a strange, often frustrating propulsion: I get twitchy if I stay in the same place for too long, yet I get homesick when I’ve been away for too long. And I’m away from home a lot.

Of course, the reason that I find myself in a state of perpetual motion is because of food and kitchen appliances. If I had never chosen the profession in which I am now ensconced, I sorely doubt that I would have trotted as much of the globe as I have. People all over the world need food and kitchen appliances, and in most instances they like their food to be tasty and not too much hassle to prepare. It’s that need which has led to me demonstrating cooking techniques from Land’s End to John O’ Groats, and from The Great Wall Of China to Toronto’s CN Tower.

A New Decade

So, it’s that time of year again, when everybody pauses to reflect upon the months gone by and mainly think about two things:

1. How quickly the year has passed and how quickly the resolutions I made in January were broken.

2. The Christmas holidays are all but over and it’s time to go back to work.

Neither of these is the most cheering of thoughts, so it’s probably best avoiding those topics for now, particularly as this evening most people the length and breadth of the United Kingdom will be heading out for some intensive partying.

I predict a maggot, I predict a maggot….

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.

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.