The highs and the lows

Sheila is off on annual leave all this week so I was facing the daily cash-ups today, made a little more complicated by the addition of our two new soft play centres. They don't use the same computerised system as us, and also take cash, so I knew that it would take me a little while to input all the figures! Once they were done, I concentrated on the emails, so today flew by!

I was delighted to find Masterchef on BBC iPlayer this evening and planned to watch it when Sophie returned from work. Keith and I had prepared the vegetables for dinner and all we needed to do was bung everything in the oven, as we had decided on a chicken traybake served with cous cous. 

When Sophie came home, we put Masterchef on and watched most of it before dinner. We've noticed some brand new trends, and once fashionable cooking terms have fallen out of favour.

Ascending:

Risky fondants (whether chocolate or potato) are still popular. So far...7

Home-made pasta (always a risk, especially in the first round)...13

Panna cotta...4

Oils feature heavily too...10

There have been 4 veloutés, 3 crisps and 4 tuiles.

14 contestants have cited parents or grandparents as the inspiration for their cooking, while 11 liked to brag about travel as their driving force.

We've noticed new terms - fennel snow, compressed tomatoes, a parmesan collar (!) and a beetroot blanket.

Greg constantly uses the word "cookery" rather than just plain cooking and I wish we'd started counting that as well!

Descending:

So far, we haven't had any soufflés, poached pears, soils, consommés, sous-vides emulsions or creme pats. Obviously fallen way out of favour!

We've had 4 contestants crying, 4 sob stories and a vegan contestant cutting off the top of her finger. Arrgggh!! We really didn't need to see the little bit of skin on the knife! Happy watching!