The Delicious Miss Dahl on Romance

I'm a fair and rational person. And I cannot ignore The Delicious Miss Dahl, I.II. I think it only fair to review episode two of the Delicious Miss Dahl series to give you good foodie friends a further insight and hopefully a gentle push in the direction of iPlayer. Romance was the theme of this week's programme and that, granted, is unlikely to fail with me. From the outset, one knows this will do all the right things and lull us into that false sense of idealised romanticism, however in love and romance I am certainly not a fair and rational person, and I always succumb.

my ode to love

I liked Sophie Dahl in this episode of the Delicious Miss Dahl. From it I'd say she's definitely had her fair share of heart ache and is therefore educated sufficiently in the subject matter to woo us with her food. I have to say Buckwheat Blinis are on now firmly my cookery-based to-do list.  I liked her twists in the classic Shepard's pie, and cooking scallops. In their shells. On the barbecue. Oh come on, it oozes over-the-top-excesses of romantic liason. Being a bit overly curious, I did wonder when and where she filmed this episode, because I certainly missed the barbecue-summer that warranted outdoor cooking in a halterneck dress.

Again the programme reawakened my hibernating music muses including Sia's I go to sleep and Regina Spektor's Eet. And she included a poem by Wendy Cope, After the Lunch,  which I heart muchly, and an excerpt from the Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. I also newly discovered, He Loved Three Things by Anna Akhmatova.

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love."

~ Wendy Cope, After the Lunch

What I liked about this programme was that it wasn't too obvious. It didn't go down the gushy pulp road. Graveyards and old bookshops was a refreshingly new look at love. And she almost hit that, 'I thought only I thought that' button. I think, in a way, this style is quite 'cool' these days. But when you're throwing rationality and fairness out of the window, I'll let the Delicious Miss Dahl off.

Food as an expression of decadent love. I wholeheartedly concur.

The Delicious Miss Dahl

I watched Sophie Dahl's new cookery programme on BBC 2 last night. And I actually really rather enjoyed it. It felt like a fun frolic with your ever so-slightly rebellious friend. It's had a bit of so-so media coverage and unfair comparisons to Nigella-the-godess-Lawson. She's not trying to steal her crown but yes, it's a bit similar, a bit sickly sweet and a bit pretentious. But in a way, that is all the things I love in a cookery show. There'll be 6 shows in all, each emotionally themed, this week was food for when you're feeling Selfish.

http://www.quentinblake.com/index.html

The title is unashamedly Roald Dahl. But actually, Sophie Dahl is an enchanting story-teller in her own right. And she was the muse for Sophie in the BFG. She had a excellent way with words, scripted or not, and this was the best feature of the show to me. She oozed enthusiasm in this respect but I couldn't help but feel that this didn't quite cross over in the food. It was good-looking wholesome food. I took some ideas from it, but it wasn't earth-shatteringly good. With the plethora of whimsical women donning our screens with 'new' cooking ideas I think the food in The Delicious Miss Dahl could have been better.


I did like the interludes, of Dahl in little shops musing and lusting over items. I think she tried to appeal to all the classes and all the viewers, careful not to emphasise her generous upbringing and probably sizable fortune. I think she liked food, but if anything I wanted a bit more Nigella-based indulgence.


All in all, a nice tuesday night drift into dreaming of the good-life, the good food and the good-times. I might not be buying her cookery book, but I'll be watching next week, Romance, and I may indulge in her novella.

In particular one quote that I liked was this,

 "Be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend."
Katharine Hepburn