Alex Watts's Blog, page 13

Prime Minister's Local Pub Rescued By Villagers

Villagers are celebrating after banding together to keep the Prime Minister's local pub open.



They launched a campaign after The Russell Arms, the nearest watering hole to the PM's official country residence of Chequers, was put on the market by Punch Taverns for £425,000.



Many feared the pub - which David Cameron has visited several times since taking office - looked set to be bought by a developer and turned into a house, or converted into an Indian or Chinese restaurant.



Residents in Butlers Cross, Buckinghamshire, set up a limited company - The Russell Pub Company - and offered shares at £5,000 each, with the aim of raising enough to buy the freehold.



They have now had their £390,000 offer accepted, and hope to transform it back into "the successful, thriving community hub that it once was".



Matt Porter, who led the campaign, wrote to villagers this week, giving them the good news.



"We're delighted to let you know that our bid has been successful...and we are now going through the legal process to finally acquire the site," he said.



"Thanks to everyone for their tremendous support and for getting us this far."



He said the pub is in need of a substantial refurbishment, estimated to be around £125,000, and they were now raising funds to pay for that.



In December last year, residents in the nearby village of Dinton raised £360,000 to buy The Seven Stars amid fears their only pub might close.



Campaigners say 16 community pubs are shutting each week in the UK because of high taxes and rocketing bills, and with their demise, Britain is losing part of its culture.



MORE: MPs Moan Their Soup Bowls Are Too Small And Their Subsidised Crisps Are 10g Too Light





My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Twitter Reviews:



"A rattling good read." - @chrispople



"It's a fab read. The Fat Duck chapters are class." - @Mcmoop



"If you claim to be a foodie you MUST buy this book." - @CorkGourmetGuy



"Bought your book and am hugely enjoying. Funny, engaging, interesting, lively." - @oliverthring



"A great read about the reality of working at The Fat Duck & other less famed restaurants." - @alanbertram



"Very funny, very close to the bone." - @AmeliaHanslow



"A great read and must have book for anyone in the industry." - @philwhite101



"Thoroughly enjoyed it." - @rosechadderton



"Excellent!" - @MissCay



"Just finished your book, and loved it! Thanks for ending on a happy note; it needed it after all the reality ;-)" - @voorschot



"Fab account of psycho chefs, plus work experience with Heston and Stein." - @Laurajanekemp



"Excellent read & loved the 'scary duck' tale! I look forward to the follow up book (no pressure ;D). Great memories of first being addressed as chef." - @granthawthorne



"Sensational account of a chef's life, couldn't put it down. Get it from Amazon now!" - @Fishermansarms



"I'm loving your book. Very enjoyable. Some great one-liners. "His legs wobbled like a crab on stilts" had me chuckling." - @griptonfactor



"Highly recommended. A great book about changing careers for his love of cooking." @Whatsinmymouth



"Downloaded the book last Sunday and finished it the same day! Great read." - @MTomkinsonChef



"Very funny." - @SkyRuth



"Any of you who have flirted with chefdom, go and immediately download this book from Amazon - Down and Out in Padstow and London. Great read." - @el_duder



"Truly brilliant." - @kcassowary



"Just rattled through Down And Out in Padstow and London by Alex Watts in no time at all, what a great book." - @leejamesburns



"It's brilliant, a fine piece of work. If you've ever wanted to peer into a professional kitchen I can't recommend it highly enough." - @acidadam



"Fantastic read - the English Kitchen Confidential!" - @cabbagemechanic



"A great eBook to buy about serving your time (literally!) as a trainee chef." - @OkBayBach



"Great read." - @rankamateur



"Don't start reading it if you have things to do:)" - @NorthernSnippet



"Great book...couldn't put it down, read it non-stop on a train and finished it in one day." - @chunkymunki



"Jolly good read, feel free to do one more." - @esbens



There are also 12 reviews on its Amazon page .



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE .

What's Next For Gordon Ramsay? Monkey Tennis?

It shows what a ridiculous, self-perpetuating farce reality TV has become when a satirical programme idea dreamed up by Alan Partridge becomes, err, reality.



In I'm Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan's failed chat show host frantically tries to sell TV pitches to an unimpressed BBC executive in a bid to get himself back on telly. The gems include Arm Wrestling With Chas & Dave, Inner City Sumo, Cooking In Prison, and Youth Hostelling With Chris Eubank.



In flailing desperation, the Norwich DJ plucks another idea of out of thin air, and suggests "Monkey Tennis?" - a phrase that later came to be used by pundits to describe today's crop of lowest common denominator TV programmes.



But what a shame he didn't try to pitch his ideas 14 years later. Because in a move worthy of the well-aired tabloid phrase 'you couldn't make it up', Gordon Ramsay has stolen one of Partridge's gags by fronting a Channel 4 show about cooking in prison.





If you've ever wondered whether there is anything that


Channel 4 insiders claim it is actually a serious attempt to shake-up prison food and save the Government cash by teaching inmates to cook.



If it all sounds a bit like Jamie's School Dinners, which saw Jamie Oliver overhaul food in schools, then that's because it is.



With grub in schools, hospitals, and even submarines all having been "transformed" by celebrity chefs, TV executives were clearly left shamelessly scraping the bottom of the barrel by nicking one of Coogan's ridiculous ideas for a show.



Ramsay is apparently keen to use his cooking skills to help prisoners' rehabilitation - even though he didn't bother helping out his own brother Ronald when he got banged up in an Indonesian jail in 2007 after being caught with heroin.



The show is part of the £1m, one-year deal Ramsay signed last April with C4. Perhaps if he gets another contract, he'll get to front Monkey Tennis. It's not like they'll be a shortage of celebrity chefs eager to take part.



MORE: Gordon Ramsay A Cut Above The Rest?





My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Twitter Reviews:



"A rattling good read." - @chrispople



"It's a fab read. The Fat Duck chapters are class." - @Mcmoop



"If you claim to be a foodie you MUST buy this book." - @CorkGourmetGuy



"Bought your book and am hugely enjoying. Funny, engaging, interesting, lively." - @oliverthring



"A great read about the reality of working at The Fat Duck & other less famed restaurants." - @alanbertram



"Very funny, very close to the bone." - @AmeliaHanslow



"A great read and must have book for anyone in the industry." - @philwhite101



"Thoroughly enjoyed it." - @rosechadderton



"Excellent!" - @MissCay



"Just finished your book, and loved it! Thanks for ending on a happy note; it needed it after all the reality ;-)" - @voorschot



"Fab account of psycho chefs, plus work experience with Heston and Stein." - @Laurajanekemp



"Excellent read & loved the 'scary duck' tale! I look forward to the follow up book (no pressure ;D). Great memories of first being addressed as chef." - @granthawthorne



"Sensational account of a chef's life, couldn't put it down. Get it from Amazon now!" - @Fishermansarms



"I'm loving your book. Very enjoyable. Some great one-liners. "His legs wobbled like a crab on stilts" had me chuckling." - @griptonfactor



"Highly recommended. A great book about changing careers for his love of cooking." @Whatsinmymouth



"Downloaded the book last Sunday and finished it the same day! Great read." - @MTomkinsonChef



"Very funny." - @SkyRuth



"Any of you who have flirted with chefdom, go and immediately download this book from Amazon - Down and Out in Padstow and London. Great read." - @el_duder



"Truly brilliant." - @kcassowary



"Just rattled through Down And Out in Padstow and London by Alex Watts in no time at all, what a great book." - @leejamesburns



"It's brilliant, a fine piece of work. If you've ever wanted to peer into a professional kitchen I can't recommend it highly enough." - @acidadam



"Fantastic read - the English Kitchen Confidential!" - @cabbagemechanic



"A great eBook to buy about serving your time (literally!) as a trainee chef." - @OkBayBach



"Great read." - @rankamateur



"Don't start reading it if you have things to do:)" - @NorthernSnippet



"Great book...couldn't put it down, read it non-stop on a train and finished it in one day." - @chunkymunki



"Jolly good read, feel free to do one more." - @esbens



There are also 12 reviews on its Amazon page.



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE.

Spit-Roast Cow Restaurants Banned For 'Inciting Violence'

A piece I wrote for Khmer 440 about ministers outlawing one of the best meals to be had in Cambodia...



One of the strangest stories of the week must surely be the government ban on spit-roasting cows in public. Apparently, pen-pushers in Phnom Penh think the sight of calf carcasses being slowly barbecued and then chopped up in full view of squeamish passers-by could incite violence and is bad for the image of Cambodia.



The country's Council of Ministers signed a directive ordering all 'koo dut' restaurants to remove these grisly sights following a meeting by the Supreme Council of the Mohanikaya Buddhist order, which decided they glorify the killing of animals.



"Grilling cows in front of the restaurants is a show of support for violence in a country that believes in the Buddhist religion. It can instil the ideas of a massacre to a child and push them to commit violence in society," council member Chhoeng Bunchhea told reporters, adding that rotisserie chickens and whole roast ducks were okay because they were "small size" animals.



Continue reading ...

Cambodian Food: The Chef Hailed As A Genius By Raymond Blanc

My nine-month quest to learn how to cook Cambodian food hasn't been an easy one. There are only a few decent cookbooks on the subject, and even they're filled with contradictions, making it even harder to get to the bottom of what is undoubtedly one of the world's most overlooked cuisines.



You might have thought I'd lost a bet when I set out to do this, especially as I can only speak a few words of Khmer, or at least ones that are understood. But I really wanted to go somewhere that hasn't been done to death. I've always loved Indian food, for instance, and haven't been helped by the fact that there are a few very good Indian restaurants out here, when I should have been researching the local delicacies, but the world hardly needs another book or blog on Indian food.



But saying that, given that Cambodian cuisine was heavily influenced by the cooking of early Indian traders, and then much later by Cham Muslim, Vietnamese , and Chinese immigrants and invaders, and then French imperialists, whose only legacy in this beautiful country seems to be the humble baguette, it's impossible to know where one food starts and another ends.



Take ' loc lac ' for instance (beef steak stir-fried in oyster sauce and ketchup). It's easily the second most famous Cambodian dish after the repulsive unofficial national dish of amok. It's on every menu, even in places that do actually serve proper traditional dishes. But it's undoubtedly Vietnamese - even the name is Vietnamese.



And calling it 'English loc lac' with the courtesy of a fried egg on top is just ridiculous - and shows just how unconfident Cambodians are about their food, and how reluctantly they reveal the real, pongy, delicious stuff that they hide near the ruins at Angkor Wat.



Talk to one chef, and they'll say one thing, talk to another and they'll say something else. Some will point out how the Khmer Empire ruled Thailand for hundreds of years, and gave its food as much as it took, and that tom yam soup is actually Cambodian. While others claim amok is a Thai dish.



No-one seems to be in agreement about anything. And it isn't helped by the fact that it's virtually impossible to find traditional ethnic Khmer food in Cambodia, and even when you do, it's stuffed full of MSG and drenched in horrible bottled sauces.



You can still find it in the countryside, passed from mother to daughter in homes and a few restaurants and street stalls, as I've written about in the past. But I knew my quest wouldn't be complete without visiting Joannès Rivière (pic above) - a chef widely seen as one of the world's leading experts on Cambodian cuisine .



The Frenchman, who worked as a food consultant for Rick Stein when he visited the country for one of his programmes, has been shining the path in the Cambodian culinary capital of Siem Reap for the past nine years. Chefs and food writers kept telling me that what he doesn't know about Cambodian food can be written on a 100 riel note.



I was convinced Rivière was the man to talk to, even if he was only going to dispel a few of my theories, and even more so when celebrity chef Raymond Blanc heaped huge praise on him last month during a visit to Cuisine Wat Damnak.



"Oh mon Dieu, this man can cook, he is blessed!" Blanc wrote on his blog after trying his Cambodian tasting menu.





The menu certainly sounded interesting - an amuse bouche of green mango salad; fresh rice flake pancake with prawn, smoked fish and aubergine puree; pan-fried chlang (an eel-like fish from the nearby Tonle Sap lake - pic above) with crisp vegetables and hyacinth blossom; quail curry with pumpkin and long beans; and a sticky rice crème brûlée (pic below).





"Those moments are rare when you know that you are in the presence of a very gifted craftsman," added Blanc. "Remember this name: Joannès Rivière."



That was it - I had to meet the man. I caught a bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, and was about to give the chef a call when I got embroiled in a couple of news stories. Two weeks later, I rang and he told me to come round the next day.





I walked along the dusty, crater-filled side streets near Wat Damnak temple, a mile or so from town, and then spotted the restaurant's blue logo. The place had been converted from a traditional Khmer house, with a large kitchen extension at the back, and was set in a beautiful garden.



Rivière emerged from the kitchen with fat beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. He gestured me to a seat flanked by herb pots and we shared two bottles of ice cold water as the midday sun beat down.



He was good company, and very self-effacing given his credentials. You only had to look at him to see he had cooking and restaurants in his blood. He grew up working in his family's small restaurant in Roanne, in the Loire region of France, and then went to chef school for three years before working as a pastry chef in Nantucket and Philadelphia.



He then decided he needed a change of scene and moved to Cambodia, working as a volunteer for two years teaching impoverished kids cooking and hospitality skills at the French NGO-run Sala Bai Hotel School in Siem Reap.



But savings don't last forever, however much Buddha's on your side, and he spent the next five years as executive chef of one of the northern city's most prestigious venues, Hotel de la Paix, launching its renowned Cambodian degustation menu. In April last year, during Cambodia's hottest month, and at the beginning of the low season, he and his wife Carole opened Cuisine Wat Damnak "with the aim of serving delicious and imaginative Cambodian food to locals, expats and travellers alike". They also had a baby.



"It wasn't a very clever idea," chuckles Rivière, rubbing his eyes. "I wouldn't recommend to have a baby and open a restaurant at the same time. It's extremely tiring! You finish work at midnight and then you have to wake up at 6am, and it's like this every single day!"



It wasn't the most auspicious start. Business was fairly slow, and then he was hit by last year's severe flooding and had to close for two months. But the word slowly got round as foodie tourists and expats and rich Khmers from Phnom Penh flocked to see a Frenchman showcasing traditional Cambodian recipes using seasonal fish, fruit and vegetables that are nearly impossible to source.



"I wanted to open a restaurant like you would in France or England by focusing on the products, which is actually very rarely the case in Cambodia. So I base all the recipes on that. If I find a good fish then we change the menu, and put the fish on the menu," he says.





Rivière built up a network of local suppliers, getting freshwater fish from the Tonle Sap and pigs from farms near the world-famous temples of Angkor Wat. "The two good meats in Cambodia are fish and pork," he explains. "If you can get Cambodian pork - because 70% of the pork here is imported from Vietnam, and is industrially farmed."



The beautifully-white local pig meat is showcased in dishes like braised pork shank with star anis, caramelised palm sugar, fresh bamboo shoots, and crispy trotter. But it's the freshwater fish he's most proud of - a food that he says truly defines Cambodian cuisine.



"There are very, very good freshwater fish here. The Tonle Sap is actually the second biggest source of freshwater fish in the world after the Amazon, and because the ecosystem is so unique there is a variety of fish of all types."





There are two fish on that day. Kay, which is originally from the Danube, but was introduced to Cambodia to help boost fish stocks. "They're very, very bad in Europe - they taste like shit. But here they're very good. They're one of the best fish from the lake," he says. It's served as a fillet with tamarind reduction and pounded ambarella (golden apple).



The other is sanday (butter catfish), a big, torpedo-shaped predator with a large mouth and small tail that migrates between the Mekong and Tonle Sap. He serves that in a yellow curry sauce with green jackfruit.



Both are highly prized by Cambodians, and fetch high prices at the market, where Rivière, 32, follows the French tradition of shopping every morning for that night's menu. With some foods only available for a month or two every year, he creates a new menu every week. But he's given up describing his food as "local and seasonal", cringing at the Noma-fuelled cliché it's become.



"Everyone says that now," he chuckles. "Now we say we choose premium products that happen to be seasonal..."



His food will dash any preconceptions about Cambodian food - or at least what most people think is Cambodian food - being bland and uninteresting. It's piquantly flavoured with herbs, fish paste, fish sauce, and fermented soy beans. He's a big fan of bold flavours like Cambodia's famous fish 'cheese' prahok , and its more expensive sister maam, which is milder and more refined, if you can describe rotten fish that way, because it's made using a different fermentation process.





He runs off to the kitchen and brings back a Tupperware box full of maam (pic above), which he will bake that night with minced pork and egg, and serve with herbs, flowers and local crudités.

"I always get it from the same supplier. She makes it for me without colour or MSG. The fish is salted for 24 hours then stacked in a jar with salted rice and galangal, and stored for one month until it becomes sour," he says. "I don't invent anything, I just use local products, and use quite traditional combinations, and then the technique and the presentation are definitely French."





Another thing that differentiates his food is coriander. He doesn't use it. It's hard to find, because like carrots, potatoes, and onions, it doesn't grow well in Cambodia. Instead, most restaurants use culantro, or lawn parsley, a coriander-tasting, jagged-toothed herb originally from the Caribbean (pic above). But he doesn't use that either because he says it was brought here by Chinese immigrants, and you generally don't find it in traditional Cambodian dishes.



Confusingly though, he does use 'local thyme' (chir slokkrahs, or pig's ear - pic below), even though it's another herb from the Caribbean. It's a common fragrance often used in traditional Cambodian beef and tripe recipes, he explains. I don't push the point any further.





He shows me the kitchen, pointing out the foot-high flood mark on the wooden door frame. It's a lovely, airy space built on to the back of the house. When I mention how much it must have cost him, he just shrugs: "I have to spend 14 hours a day in here, so I want it to be a nice place."





He leads me into a side chamber where a girl is prepping frogs for his pan-fried frog meat on a dry Vietnamese soup dish. Hang on - Vietnamese? I'm confused already. They have a short conversation in Khmer. From what I can tell she's not too happy because the frogs aren't as big as the last batch.





He leads me back into the main kitchen and proudly shows me the chicken stock simmering on the stove (pics below and above). He starts off by frying prahok paste, and then adds water, barbecued chicken, plenty of lemon grass stalks, lime leaves, and several heads of garlic, which will be carefully peeled and used as a garnish. The sour soup is then served with straw mushrooms, potulac, holy basil, and local thyme on the $17 five-course tasting menu.





Next to it is a tray of aubergines grilled to black. They'll be made into a paste with ground smoked fish (pic below) to go with the fresh rice flake pancake. In the fridge is a bowl of chocolate and holy basil ganache, which is served on the second tasting menu, a six-courser for $24, with rice praline and salted caramel sheet.





I can tell from his passion, the presentation of the dishes, the quality of his ingredients, and the incredible smells why Blanc was so impressed - the fellow Frenchman describing his food as having "supreme command in the spicing, warm in the mouth, long flavours so perfect, complex but no sophistication: simply delicious."



I ask him about the TV chef's visit, but Rivière just shrugs.



"I knew his name but I wasn't very familiar with his restaurant or anything. The chef from La Residence called me and said I want to book a table for Raymond Blanc - and I was fully booked. And he said 'Oh come on, it's Raymond Blanc!' So we found him a table at the back in a dark corner of the terrace so he wouldn't see too much," he laughs.



Afterwards, Blanc asked for a tour of the kitchen and shook hands with the staff. He was intrigued by one of the dishes - 'soup outside the pot' - a vibrant, green dish of raw herbs and vegetables which at the last minute has broth made from dried fish and spices poured over it.



"He said I've never had such a thing before, this is genius! But it's not something I invented, it's very, very, traditional. Cambodians will put grated boiled eggs in it to thicken it up, but we don't because it looks quite ugly..."



I ask whether it's possible that Cambodia might be on its way to its first big restaurant award, given Blanc's hyperbole, and the painfully-trendy vogue for locally-picked weeds, but Rivière just laughs in his usual modest manner.



"It's not me who'd going to decide that," he says.



Then I ask if I can do a day in his kitchen as part of the interview. He looks less surprised than reluctant. Then he suggests I meet him at the market at 7.45 on Wednesday morning and we take it from there...





MORE: In Defence Of Cambodian Cooking



My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Twitter Reviews:



"A rattling good read." - @chrispople



"It's a fab read. The Fat Duck chapters are class." - @Mcmoop



"If you claim to be a foodie you MUST buy this book." - @CorkGourmetGuy



"Bought your book and am hugely enjoying. Funny, engaging, interesting, lively." - @oliverthring



"A great read about the reality of working at The Fat Duck & other less famed restaurants." - @alanbertram



"Very funny, very close to the bone." - @AmeliaHanslow



"A great read and must have book for anyone in the industry." - @philwhite101



"Thoroughly enjoyed it." - @rosechadderton



"Excellent!" - @MissCay



"Just finished your book, and loved it! Thanks for ending on a happy note; it needed it after all the reality ;-)" - @voorschot



"Fab account of psycho chefs, plus work experience with Heston and Stein." - @Laurajanekemp



"Excellent read & loved the 'scary duck' tale! I look forward to the follow up book (no pressure ;D). Great memories of first being addressed as chef." - @granthawthorne



"Sensational account of a chef's life, couldn't put it down. Get it from Amazon now!" - @Fishermansarms



"I'm loving your book. Very enjoyable. Some great one-liners. "His legs wobbled like a crab on stilts" had me chuckling." - @griptonfactor



"Highly recommended. A great book about changing careers for his love of cooking." @Whatsinmymouth



"Downloaded the book last Sunday and finished it the same day! Great read." - @MTomkinsonChef



"Very funny." - @SkyRuth



"Any of you who have flirted with chefdom, go and immediately download this book from Amazon - Down and Out in Padstow and London. Great read." - @el_duder



"Truly brilliant." - @kcassowary



"Just rattled through Down And Out in Padstow and London by Alex Watts in no time at all, what a great book." - @leejamesburns



"It's brilliant, a fine piece of work. If you've ever wanted to peer into a professional kitchen I can't recommend it highly enough." - @acidadam



"Fantastic read - the English Kitchen Confidential!" - @cabbagemechanic



"A great eBook to buy about serving your time (literally!) as a trainee chef." - @OkBayBach



"Great read." - @rankamateur



"Don't start reading it if you have things to do:)" - @NorthernSnippet



"Great book...couldn't put it down, read it non-stop on a train and finished it in one day." - @chunkymunki



"Jolly good read, feel free to do one more." - @esbens



There are also 12 reviews on its Amazon page .



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE .

John Cleese's Basil Fawlty-Style Hotel Rant Explodes On Twitter

How do you deal with a real life Fawlty Towers situation if you've got an enraged John Cleese as a guest? By sending out endless amounts of apologetic tweets to the comedian's 1.7 million followers apparently.



It must have seemed a good idea at the time, but as Cleese's Twitter rant exploded on the internet, they must have wished they'd never started.



Cleese, 72, sent the Hyatt hotel group's social media monitoring unit into meltdown after flying into a Basil Fawlty-style rage about the constant noise of a drill (no, no - THAT was the burglar alarm...) outside his £330 a night suite.



"Staying at the Hyatt Hotel Perth. There's been noisy drilling next door for five days, and they refuse to stop. Not recommended!" he ranted.



His followers then began retweeting his outburst, obviously appreciating the irony of the star moaning about sub-standard hotel conditions.



One follower added "Fawlty!!"to the ex-Python's message. Another wrote: "BASIL....BASIL!!!!" And so it started.



Cleese's tweet began working its way around the world, much to the annoyance of Hyatt, who only found out about the complaint after they were copied in on one of the messages.



The hotel group apologised to the comedian, who's just begun a 50-night 'Evening With' tour of Australia to help pay off the costs of his latest divorce, saying: "Thank you for bringing your concern to our attention so we could address this straight away.



"Apologies for any inconvenience. And do let the hotel management team know if we can assist further."



Then for some bizarre reason, they began sending out an individual message to every Cleese follower who'd forwarded the rant - presumably hoping that would somehow limit the PR damage.



"Thank you for sharing Mr Cleese's concern. We have addressed this to his satisfaction," they tweeted over and over again.



They were still doing it when I last checked. You can only have sympathy for the poor PR lackeys who have got to sit there copying and pasting the same message to every sender.



And just when they think it's gone quiet, Cleese's tirade gathers momentum in the Twittersphere and they've got to send out another batch.



You can imagine them with their gritted teeth and Basil Fawlty-like maniacal smiles.



"Thanks so much!"



"I'm so sorry!"



"Yes, so sorry!"



Who'd work in PR? The urge to write something else must be overwhelming.



MORE: Complaining About Bed Bugs In Hotels





My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE .

Down And Out In Padstow And London Pt 2

Whenever the subject of eBooks comes up in the media, it inevitably leads to another drawn-out, weary discussion about the future of the traditional publishing industry, and whether the rise of Kindles, iPads and other eReaders will lead to the death of printed books.



The short and long answer is, of course, no. But it's amazing how many people are paid to write 2,000 words to say it. There will always be folk who prefer the feel, smell, and tea cup stains of printed books. The dog-eared pages, the scribbles in the margin, the ability to store it in the bookcase and return to it like a lost friend at a later date. Or just the ability to store it in the bookcase with hundreds of other weighty tomes to make visitors think you're far better read than you really are.



You will hear statistics quoted about how four million Kindle Fires were sold in the US over Christmas, and how some indie authors are now selling 1,000 eBooks for every printed book they sell, and how many big name writers are turning their backs on publishing houses and all their middle men to take the far more profitable route of self-publishing.



Look on Twitter, and there's always some celebrity twatting about how they've just got themselves a Kindle, or why does it only want to connect with the US store, and is this normal? And fans are like sheep after all, so for every sleb that buys one, there are probably a hundred people who'll rush out and do the same.



But you don't hear so much about the underlying reasons for this change. Just a lot of hand-rubbing, gloating, and stat-quoting from geeks who seem to be allergic to paper for some reason. I used to work for a boss at an online news service who was the same about newspapers.



"This isn't a newspaper!" he would snap whenever his editorial judgement was questioned. We used to wonder whether his Dad had beaten him with rolled-up newspapers when he was a kid.



A friend of mine came to visit me in Cambodia before Christmas - before I began grappling with the formatting gremlins of publishing my own eBook, Down And Out In Padstow And London . He left me with a paperback, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt, he'd bought to read on the plane.



It was a fantastic read, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a road trip-style novel featuring two hired killers set in cowboy times, somewhere between the California Gold Rush and the introduction of toothpaste.



But the thing that struck me most was the price - £12.99 for a paperback! I'd only been away for a year, what had happened? Surely they were £8 or £9 at most when I went away? Thirteen quid for a novel is a hell of a luxury for many people in these belt-tightening times.



The author's making little on it, so is the publishing house - which is why so many are haemorrhaging cash these days. It's all down to the increasing scarcity of the world's precious resources. It costs a small fortune to produce and distribute a paperback these days - the electricity, the diesel, the paper, the ink - not to mention paying off everyone else in the supply chain suffering similar rising costs.



EBooks on the other hand cost virtually nothing to produce and deliver, and are so ecologically friendly (if you forget about the puppies that have been drowned in hydroelectric dams to create them) they make you feel wonderful and saintly when you buy one.



If you consider that the whole point of books is to spread knowledge and entertain, then the rise of eBooks can only be a good thing - however much you miss the dusty, fusty, library smell of a 'real' book. Because you can get two or three for the same price, and in some cases with all the 'Indian curry secrets' and diet books selling for pennies on Amazon, should you ever want them - about 20.



Knowing that most regular authors get a quid or two for each paperback they sell, I priced my Kindle book accordingly, which means after Amazon have taken their generous cut, I can sell mine for the price of half a lager to make the same return, whereas I'll have to sell the printed version for £7 or £8, or the price of half a lager in Reykjavik.



As I say, the relative cheapness of eBooks can only be a good thing. If you looked at the news yesterday and saw Nick Clegg jumping up and down like mop-haired, cheese-botherer Alex James at a KFC processing plant about how great it was that McDonald's was creating 2,500 new jobs for young people in the UK, then you can see where the new jobs and wages are coming from.



Not skilled, well-paid sectors, but burger flipping and being forced to say "welcome to McDonald's" every few seconds. And as they'll be on a salary little more than minimum wage, how many of the next generation will be prepared to spend two hours' pay and more on a paperback?



But it's not just the price of eBooks - it's their transportability. I've been travelling around SE Asia for the past year or so hauling around a small collection of books - five at most is usually all I can cram into my laptop bag, and there's never any room in my rucksack.



I always keep my Far Flung Floyd book for old times, I can't bear to part with that. But when I've read them all, I trade them in for a fraction of the price I bought them for at the many second hand book shops they've got out here in Cambodia , and then buy several more.



But I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to return to an old book now filling the shelves in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap . But using a Kindle or other eReader means you can carry around half the British Library for the weight of, well, a Kindle. I just wish they sold them here.



Anyway, as I was finally getting round to saying, I'm very pleased with the feedback and sales of my eBook so far. But I was surprised just how many people said they would rather wait for the printed version.



So I realise you need to do both, and hopefully it should be available on Amazon et al in a couple of weeks. (Other people said they hadn't got a Kindle and wanted to know how else they could read it. There is a free Kindle reader app you can download for your computer, CLICK HERE - it was very quick and easy, and worked pretty well on my knackered laptop.)



The recommendations I've had for my book on Twitter and the online reviews on Amazon have been far better than I ever hoped. One of the most entertaining things has been checking the hourly-updated sales figures on Amazon's Kindle bestseller charts. After a flurry of good reviews last week, my book hit number nine in the Food and Drink chart. Number nine! Way above Nigella, Delia, and the two hairy bastards, and even higher than the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook.



But counting chickens and all that, when I just checked it had slipped out of the top 40 to number 43. Anyway, I know it's a shameless plug, but without a marketing or PR budget, I need every bit of help and luck I can get. So below are the reviews and Twitter recommendations I've had so far in case you're flirting with the idea of reading it. And if you have read it, and liked it, please leave a review on its Amazon page.



Book blurb:



"Reading 'Down and Out in Padstow and London' is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar , author of two food/travel memoirs, Eat My Globe and Eating For Britain.



Twitter Comments:



"Two chapters in to Alex Watts' book & bloody LOVING it. Engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly readable. & TWO QUID!" - @chrispople



"It's a fab read. The Fat Duck chapters are class." - @Mcmoop



"If you claim to be a foodie you MUST buy this book." - @CorkGourmetGuy



"Just rattled through Down And Out in Padstow and London by Alex Watts in no time at all, what a great book." - @leejamesburns



"It's brilliant, a fine piece of work. If you've ever wanted to peer into a professional kitchen I can't recommend it highly enough." - @acidadam



"Fantastic read - the English Kitchen Confidential!" - @cabbagemechanic



"A great eBook to buy about serving your time (literally!) as a trainee chef." - @OkBayBach



"Great read." - @rankamateur



"Don't start reading it if you have things to do:)" - @NorthernSnippet



"Great book...couldn't put it down, read it non-stop on a train and finished it in one day." - @chunkymunki



"Really enjoyed your book. Thanks and good luck! As a closet wannabe chef it really hit the mark :) Good on you for taking the plunge!" - @el-duder



"Jolly good read, feel free to do one more." - @esbens



There are also nine reviews here on its Amazon page ...



In the fairness of balance, it is only right for me to mention the negatives as well. I've had two so far. The first being that the book is quite short (70,000 words), and the second was a tweet from Glasgow-born award-winning journalist and screenwriter Audrey Gillan , who described Rick Stein's executive chef's Glaswegian accent as "pure murdurr - nae Glaswegians speak like that - evur".



I've just checked again, and it's now number 47 - one place behind Farting The Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright, but nine above Stein's My Kitchen Table: 100 Fish And Seafood Recipes.



Oh well, small acorns and all that, but if the book does ever get anywhere, they could always use Brad Pitt for the Scotch part.



MORE: Down And Out In Padstow And London Pt 1



Pitching Confidential: How Not To Get A Food Book Published



To buy my book, CLICK HERE .

Antony Worrall Thompson's Cruise Ship Cooking Demo Axed After Shoplifting Arrest

Troubled celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson's cooking demonstrations on a luxury cruise ship have been given the chop following his arrest for shoplifting .



AWT was due to deliver his culinary tricks of the trade (first steal 1kg of onions...) on the MSC Splendida for its cruise in February, but the line-up was changed "with regret" following the news this month that he'd been caught stealing at Tesco in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.



The recession-hit cook will instead be replaced by celebrity chef Paul Rankin for the seven-night cruise visiting Barcelona, Valletta, La Goulette, Civitavecchia, and Marseille.



"In the wake of the coverage which appeared in the media and Mr Thompson's own public announcement of his desire to seek appropriate treatment for his condition, we felt that his presence on board was no longer tenable at this particular time," said a spokesman at MSC Cruises.



The firm said Rankin - who appears on Ready Steady Cook and Ten Mile Menu, and won Northern Ireland's first Michelin Star - will "showcase some of his best loved dishes – and a selection unique to MSC".





It said Rankin (above), 52, was a "passionate supporter of local produce, so much so that in 2002 he launched The Rankin Selection, a range of traditional foods now stocked in supermarkets throughout the UK."



Not sure if they're stocked at Tesco in Henley, but AWT didn't nick any when he failed to pay for items at the self-service checkouts FIVE times in 16 days over the Christmas period.



Some goods were scanned and paid for while others, including blocks of cheese from the deli and bottles of wine, were sneaked into bags without going through the till.



Suspicious staff set up a hidden camera in the self-checkout area to catch the wily 60-year-old and prove he had not simply forgotten to pay.



Wozza - who is a fund-raiser for the Tories - was stopped by security guards in front of shoppers as he tried to leave the shop on January 6.



He was arrested on suspicion of theft and given a caution at a local police station after admitting the offences.



The cook is now receiving counselling to try to figure out why he stole the items, and has come up with a basketful of excuses from his abuse at boarding school to aliens invading.



He said after his arrest: "I am so sorry for all my recent stupid and irresponsible actions; I am of course devastated for my family and friends, whom I've let down and will seek the treatment that is clearly needed.



"I am not the first, and I certainly won't be the last person to do something without rhyme or reason - what went through my head, only time will tell."



My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE .

'World's Most Expensive Hot Dog' Goes On Sale For $100

It's difficult to get noticed these days in the increasingly competitive world of catering. But it always helps if you can come up with some sort of gimmick to separate you from the chaff, especially in the cut throat world of fast food and painfully fashionable food trucks .



Burgers have been done to death, even though the London food literati never seem to tire of twatting about them. But hot dogs? Well, there's still some mileage to be had out of the good old dog isn't there - that great American sporting tradition of stuffing your face with ice cold beer and something pink and meat-like in a roll?



At least, one restaurant owner in Vancouver, Canada, hopes so after launching what he claims is the world's most expensive hot dog - at a ridiculous price of $100 (£67).



So just what do you put in a hot dog to command such a ludicrous price tag? Truffles? Foie gras? Caviar? Sea cucumbers poached in Armagnac? Endangered, satellite-tracked southern river terrapin? How about flesh from the world's last bluefin tuna?



No, they've all been done to death.



The current purveyor of the world's most expensive hot dog is US celebrity chef Stephen Bruce, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. His $69 Haute Dog served at Serendipity 3 restaurant in New York comprises a beef sausage grilled in white truffle oil, and served on a pretzel roll with duck foie gras, and caramelised Vidalia onions.



But Dougie Dog owner Dougie Luv says his foot-long "mouth-wateringly delicious" Dragon Dog is the first sausage in a bap to sell for three figures.



The gimmick? It contains a bratwurst infused with 100-year-old Louis XIII cognac, which costs more than $2,000 a bottle, as well as Kobe beef seared in olive and truffle oil, fresh lobster, and a 'secret' picante sauce.



Luv said he wanted to come up with something "super tasty and high-end" that stays true to the traditional identity of the hot dog. Oh, and to get into the Guinness Book of Records and attract a whole load of PR, of course.



Just think if the brilliantly-named Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, winner of the World Hot Dog Eating Contest's mustard-yellow champion's belt for the fifth year running, got hold of them. He'd get through $6,200 worth in 10 minutes. Only in America...







My new book on training to be a chef, including stints at Rick Stein's and the Fat Duck, is available on Amazon CLICK HERE



"Reading this book is a serious test for any food writer. Not only has Alex Watts done what all of us say we would like to do, tested his mettle in a professional kitchen, he also writes about his experiences so well that you spend as much time being jealous of his writing skills as you do of his experiences. It's an annoyingly enjoyable read." - Simon Majumdar



Haven't got a Kindle? You can download a free Kindle reader app to read it on your computer. CLICK HERE .