Britain’s star chef, Jamie Oliver, has just launched his own magazine in the UK, a first for chefs over there, and the British press is having a hissy fit. Reactions to Jamie magazine have ranged from sarcastic and skeptical at the tabloid Mail to unsure and skeptical at the upmarket Guardian and disdainful and skeptical at the more conservative upmarket Telegraph. In their own way– little words at the Mail, bigger ones at the Guardian and Telegraph — each is all, OMG, what if another chef wants to do this?
The Mail correctly blames us and O for vanity magazines, neglecting to mention our republic still stands despite vanity food-related mags from the likes of RayRay and Pauler Deen. I think we can safely advise them to calm down. Sure, the vanity mags haven’t added anything to our culture, but the Food Network end of gastronomy was already kicked down so many notches, what’s another stick of fried butter between friends?
Oliver at least is a real chef, by all accounts a darn good one, and an international success. I think that’s the true problem here.
Let’s see what’s in the first issue. Lots of pictures of himself, about 100 recipes and, as the Mail snottily sums up: a host of fascinating articles about Jamie’s staff, Jamie’s recipes, Jamie’s Hollywood pals, Jamie’s charming wife Jools, the launch party at Jamie’s new Italian eatery and poker night with Jamie’s mates.
Plus a few words from the editor-in-chief… Jamie Oliver, of course.
Have they been eating sour grapes? I don’t understand why they loathe this guy. He’s worked to make Britain’s school lunches healthier and he opened an acclaimed London restaurant to hire, train and employ underprivileged young adults. Would they prefer Gordon Ramsay be the ground-breaker here, offering articles on creative ways to use the F word and how to cheat on the wife without getting caught?
Jamie magazine is bi-monthly and costs £3.95. Since their economy’s in the Dumpster too — welcome aboard, guys! – that is no longer the $22,000 it was just a few short months ago but about $5.80. The photography, apparently, is quite fine; while wondering if the magazine is “big enough for his ego” the Telegraph calls the photos “food pornography at its most alluring.” Bring it.
They’re a lot more relaxed about the man and his mag in Australia, but they’re more like us, being founded with convicts and remaining kind of unwashed, stuff we Americans don’t like to admit about ourselves. Well, I don’t mind but some do. Why that is, in a nation that gave us the Wasilla Hillbillies, is a mystery.
Will the magazine show up here? Who knows. This is hardly an auspicious time for publishing. But Oliver was introduced to us, in a brief moment of relevance, by the very same Food Network that brings us the psueds whose vanity magazines are surviving for now, so it’s possible.
And we don’t begrudge anyone their enormous success when achieved through hard, honest work.
12/17 Update: Kathy Maister of startcooking.com has seen the magazine and was kind enough to leave a long comment below with her thoughts about it. Scroll down to #18 for her insights.
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Great post.
I personally like Jamie, but admittedly he annoyed me a lot maybe five or more years ago.
And isn’t this compared with Delia Smith? I’m sure she must have had a magazine at some point to?
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The only difference between Jamie’s perception in Britian vs. everywhere else in the world is that he’s continually stalked by tabloids and he’s a bit like celebrity royalty over there. He’s as ridiculously overexposed as the likes of Paris Hilton or Britney but the frustrating thing is, he’s a super-talented chef and business man.
Personally I love Jamie and I must have watched a hundred hours of him cooking. He delivers a lot of passion and personality through the screen and makes cooking a very soulful activity.
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First, I’m happy to see the UK and Australia respectively in comments without either of you wanting to take me out for anything I said. Whew…
cat – Good to see you again. I’m glad you liked the post. The articles said his magazine is the first. Maybe it seems like Delia had one since she’s all over the BBC cooking magazines? BBC America ran one of her shows here briefly. It didn’t fly, but the PTB really didn’t give it a chance. (I prefer Jamie anyway…)
Jack – He is overexposed there. From what I can see, it’s even worse than the RayRay/Pauler overexposure here. That’s going some. I enjoy him too. I think the first season was my favorite, when he was single and living in the loft and cooking in that tiny kitchen with not-so-great equipment. Just like so many of us. I wish we’d see that sort of thing more often from cooking shows.
jamie oliver’s hot!
even the slight lisp. i suppose the fans will lap it (the mag) up, since his books are crazy expensive. as for the mag being chock-full about him and anything related to him, well, what do you expect from a magazine named after him?? (but it does sound like it’s a bit too much about him, heh.) i think he should be given credit for daring to take a risk in times like this!
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I agree with you sulz. It really sounded like sour grapes to me after reading one article after another. I wish him well with this.
But…hmmm…we’ll have to disagree on his hotness! When he first came on the air here and everybody I knew was saying he’s a hottie, I was thinking I needed an eye exam. His tongue looks too big for his mouth and I just can’t get past that.
Jamie’s School Dinners initiative was an outstanding contribution to the health of the nation.
Oliver’s remarkable success in raising the subject for debate, and achieving significant change in such an important area has done much to habilitate his image amongst many former critics (although not all).
The main problem we have with Jamie is the pseudo Cockney (’mockney’) accent. The guy likes to infer street cred by speaking like a street kid from the East End. It’s classic inverse snobbery, and it wears rather thin.
Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth for Jamie is that he enjoyed a sheltered and privileged upbringing, and both the accent and the cultivated image are nothing more than a complete sham of affected fabrication.
But apart from being a total fake, there’s not much to criticise. He’s a gifted self-publicist, and he has a heart of gold — always assuming that’s not fake as well.
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Jamie Oliver’s popularity washed over the Channel, too. His cookbooks are translated into German and three of them are on our shelves. My wife loves his cookbooks, though like me she found them too focused on himself and not on the food. I also agree with her on the TV shows – too busy and bouncy.
I’m also not sure he’s as popular here as he once was, though. A live cooking show in Hamburg was canceled recently due to poor ticket sales.
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roads – Now it’s clear why, in a Christmas episode years ago at his parents’, he was the only one with that accent. I understand that it can wear thin, even grate. The “Pauler” I mentioned — her name is Paula — is a Georgian whose accent gets thicker and more affected with each million to the point that no Southerner I’ve ever known sounds like her. And I knew someone from her small home town and believe me, his accent was nothing like hers and he didn’t say “y’all” once or twice per sentence as she has taken to doing. She’s become a caricature. I can’t bear her for even 30 seconds. (and she really did make fried butter!)
But Jamie never pretended to be from the East End, did he? On the Christmas show, his father was (I think) a publican and their house, nice but not lavish, was totally suburban. Without outright deception, I still can’t wrap my mind around what clearly seemed to me like widespread begrudging his success. Of course familiarity really can breed contempt and he does seem to be overexposed at home.
Thanks for the insight!
Ian – That’s interesting that his appearance was cancelled. Perhaps his time has come and gone or he’s not remotely a priority for discretionary income in a difficult economy. Or both…
I’ve tried a couple of his recipes (they worked) but I don’t have any of his cookbooks, even though they’ve generally gotten decent reviews. I like that he is one of the few chefs de cuisine who can tackle sweets and pastry beyond the very simplest things.
If you think he’s too busy and bouncy, most of the people on our Food Network would make you want to poke your eyes out.
Perhaps it was just a BBC magazine. All I know is that I’ve seen her photo too many times on magazines!
As for hot, what’s up with his lip? That’s far too big!
Cat’s last blog post..Happy Nikolaus 2008!
LOL! His lip and tongue are a matched set….
I’ve found a lot of Jamie Oliver related stuff in town the other day including this display at the main entrance of the biggest bookshop in town.
He’s also coming to Frankfurt for a show soon, I believe that’s wthe same thing hat Ian was referring to when he mentioned the cancelled one in North Germany.
http://carocat.tumblr.com/post/64829342/a-display-of-jamie-oliver-cookbooks-in-town-took
Cat’s last blog post..Happy Nikolaus 2008!
That’s super Cat – thanks! (2x) And what an attractive display. I’m clueless about the word of the title. Is that the equivalent of his Ministry of Food book? I just read this morning in one of the British papers (can’t remember which) it’s one of the top 10 cookbooks for Christmas, in the paper’s opinion. And who else was on the list? Oh, Delia…
The UK is absolutely obsessed with Delia! I don’t understand it myself. I remember watching her ‘How to cook’ series back in the 90’s I believe when I was in the UK for the first time and after spending 30 mins or maybe even an hour on eggs and recognising bad ones in bowls of water and just generally watching her I’ve had enough. I suppose she appeals a bit more to the ‘older’ generation by which I mean no offence to anyone, but I don’t think they were aiming for teens.
The book’s called ‘Jamie’s Kochschule’ which translates to Jamie’s cooking school and the small postcards you can somewhat see next to it [it was raining, I was standing in the rain and couldn't hold still enough!] are to win a one to one cooking lesson with Jamie, so it looks like he’s really trying to conquer the German market.
Cat’s last blog post..Happy Nikolaus 2008!
Thanks for the translation. I should have figured that out, since I know kochmesser is cook’s knife and schule is pretty obvious. I do hope you entered and will win and then you can blog about it!
I can’t remember which of Delia’s zillion series was shown here but I didn’t make it through two programs. Everything about it was so old-fashioned and she seemed so stiff. Not riveting television by any means.
Not that I could do better, mind you.
She just likes the sound of her own voice too much which yes, is true for most TV cooks, but she just reminded me like she’s stuck decades ago and I always had the feeling she was talking down on everyone, far too patronising.
A chef I like watching [not that I care all that much for actually cooking myself!] is Antony Worrall-Thompson. Do you have him in the US?
Oh and well done on the translations.
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Now that you mention it, her new book is a reworking of one from the 1970’s. The few recipes I saw looked pretty stodgy.
We don’t have Antony Worrall-Thompson. I’ve never even heard of him. I’ll dig around for him online. If he ever shows up here it probably won’t be on BBC. The only food-related anything they’ve given us for ages (except for that ghastly “nutritionist” who’s obsessed with people’s bodily functions) is the same 8 or so episodes of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare. Week after week, month after month. They’ve just now resorted to running a few of the American ones he made. They don’t seem to know what to do with us.
I finally got a chance to have a look at Jamie Oliver’s new magazine and found it interesting.
What first struck me was that the whole magazine is done in a mat and not glossy finish which immediately makes it look and feel different from the hundreds of cooking magazines out there.
The second thing that really jumped off the page was that at least every other page was selling a “Jme” product – dishes, cutting boards, serving utensils, every type of cookware imaginable with the Jme seal of approval. Plus Jme food was for sale as well – olives, oils, vinegars, etc. Is this a food magazine or a catalogue with recipes that I just paid $6. for?
As for the content, as always, I think J. O. is very creative and has an incredible sense and feel for food. Jamie’s enthusiasm jumps off of just about every page. The articles are edgier than most cooking magazines. Jamie is very casual about putting together foods in such a way that they look amazing. One should keep in mind that casual does not necessarily mean easy. Much of what is in this magazine would be quite complicated for the average visitor to my web site, startcooking.com. Obviously, all the recipes are in metric and are in “British speak”.
Within the magazine there is a Monthly Menu pull-out which offers really quick ideas but again you have to know what you are doing to make this all happen. Using ingredients that you already have on hand and knowing what to substitute for what is a developed skill that not many of us are born with. Adding an extra splash of an ingredient, or being vague with a type of herb (“use fresh herbs such as chive or mint”) can totally alter a recipe’s taste. The Blueberry & Gin Ice Cream sounds perfect for a summer night but I’m not quite sure how to measure “a slug” of gin or why this recipe is in a December issue!
I really wanted to like this magazine as I believe Jamie really and truly loves cooking and has a passion for making the world a better place through cooking. There are some fabulous ideas in it and I am glad I finally got to see a copy of this new magazine.
It will be very interesting to see how this magazine evolves. I wish Jamie the very best of luck with this new adventure.
I think I know who you mean by nutricionist. A blond woman, Gillian something? If so, I watched maybe five minutes of the show before turning it off.
The only thing I know Anthony from is from BBC’s saturday morning cooking show, I’m not too sure if he’s got his own show or anything actually.
Cat’s last blog post..How to: The BIG Twitter related link post!
Wow, Kathy, what a great review. Thank you. I’m going to update the post to mention it’s here.
I’m disappointed to learn the product pushing is everywhere. Even Martha segregates her countless products. And I know what you mean about his sometimes-hazy amounts or ingredients. He’s probably encouraging creativity or trying to show that sometimes precision isn’t necessary but that can be daunting for a novice. I wanted everything specified back then because I didn’t know enough to be able to wing it.
As for the ice cream – one of the muckety-mucks at the magazine is Australian so perhaps it’s a recipe for the other hemisphere!
Thank you again. I blocked out time for Borders last week to look for Jamie — I am incapable of spending less than an hour in a bookstore — but our ice storm disrupted my life for a few days. And now another’s on the way. I’m more eager than ever to see it.
Cat – Yep, that’s the one. She has a mail-order degree from an unaccredited school here in the States. The day I heard her diagnose some spleen or kidney problem, I forget which, just by looking at someone’s tongue I nearly lost it. I can’t believe the Beeb is behind a show like that.
Actually her show is on Channel 4 over here which is a private channel and in no way related to the BBC. Odd that they’re showing it on the BBC over there..
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That’s surprising. Some BBC programs show up on other channels here, but I didn’t think anything on BBC America was not their own. She has a big section at the bbca website. Blerg. Fun factoid – thanks!