Things I heard watching a British cooking tv show

Tear the Cling.

We bought a smart TV for the bedroom because I have an illness I’m ashamed of that requires me to watch 10 minutes of Fraiser or Modern Family before bed. It’s probably one of my favorite parts of the day. Anyway. The TV is mostly a window for apps. We use it to watch Netflix, YouTube, whatever.

Because it’s a smart TV, and there’s an endless void of “advertising opportunities” our television came preloaded with about 10,000 “channels,” which have the appearance of a TV guide but are mostly just filler crap from the internet—there’s a channel that just plays fail videos. One that plays an endless loop of antiques roadshow. The sports shows are dedicated to things like monster truck rallies and billiards.

For whatever reason, and I assume it’s because it cost nothing, the British Broadcasting Company is given like, six channels—a news channel, an international news channel, BBC Home and Gardening, and BBC Cooking. And it’s a gem. I watch may 15 minutes every night. Every episode appears to have been shot in a country house miles from London, sometime in 2005.

The following quotes were pulled from an episode of Nigellissima, which stars the British chef Nigella Lawson:

“look at that prosciutto, pink as a baby kittens tongue”

“the pasta is herb flecked and fragrant”

“I keep a bag of broad beans (?) in the freezer…I squeeze each broad bean out of their shells, if you give them a push, the inner bean will come out.”

“Thyme…such a wonderful scent they give” (sort of poetic.)

“I didn’t peal the shallot…I never do (*Winks seductively at the camera*)” (?????)

“We will cheese it” (She said this pulling some polenta off of the stove.)

“The unfurling of flavor is like the unfurling of the Italian flag” (Italy hasn’t yet been mentioned in the entire episode, and she was cooking a pretty nondescript pork loin)

“A few dark splotches in a pudding is…. *pause*…. gorgeous.”

“Adding creme will turn the pudding’s black color into color like….a Manila envelope.”

“There aren’t many puddings you can rustle up early in the morning before the kids are off at school…..*about 20 seconds later*…..add a splash of rum.”

“I need an ungainly squirt of tomato paste”

“Add a weakish chicken stock”

“The hardest task in the kitchen is the tearing of the Cling*”

*Cling is, I guess, Saran wrap.