After recording and winning my last heat on the Monday, the following Thursday, I got the train down to London and stopped at the City Road Travelodge. It was bloody hot in there; I always overheat in London, and this time was no exception, but it wasn't helped by the blessed hotel having a broken heating system that was pumping hot air into the corridors, and no aircon anywhere. Well, I say no aircon, but in an attempt to prevent my death from heat exhaustion I had to keep the window open, and there were some noisy compressors just outside it. The room was clean and spartan, but really it was like trying to sleep in a server room without the nice cool airflow.
To Hackney Community College, where the gas wasn't working properly amongst other things. Every now and then, to find out why the oven in one station wasn't working, they'd reset the system, which had the added bonus of putting out all the other burners and ovens around it. Before we got to that point there was a lot of hanging around, the usual furore, much swearing as the crew had moved from Teddington that morning and didn't know where anything was. I met the opponents, who were all lovely; one bloke ran a club in Accrington and was an example of your charming Manc motormouth, and he was seriously funny. We had a glamorous granny, a Scots chap who'd shot his own pigeon the day before, a Welsh trades unionist, a mumsy type and a tiny Indian lady who was full of stories about her homeland. And me. Three of us were doing dishes that involved shrimp, two were a seafood medley, there was a risotto, a salmon tartare, pigeon breast salad, and a chicken wrap.
Prep happened and my dough was done, we had lunch, and hung around some more. And a bit more. I wasn't worried about my dough, because you can't really overrest it. When we eventually made it into the kitchen - they were nice little pods we were working in - and had started, I did everything I was supposed to before rolling out my pasta. I poked my dough, only to discover a whole chunk of it had dried out under the lights. Foolishly, I started to see if I could knead it out, and instead I got little blobs of dried pasta working their way through the dough. JBR & Ed came over to see what I was up to, and instantly told me to stop what I was doing and make my dough again. I had 44 minutes to re-make my dough that needed an hour to rest. Argh.
Well, I pulled a rabbit out of the hat. My new dough came out really quite good - far better than I could have hoped it to, if I'm being honest - and I managed to get my ravioli done and in the water on time, just. It made quite good telly, although I did get bleeped at one point. I suspect I may be told off by my parents and Grandmother for that.
This time we didn't see the judges reactions, but the food was also being eaten by proper food critics. We were told "ten minutes" and taken outside for some air. Instead of 10 minutes we ended up hanging around for over an hour and a half, waiting for the decisions. Eventually we were all gathered up and the usual trio gave the verdict, and I was out, beaten by the salmon tartare and the risotto.
We were hanging around for postmatch interviews, and one of the critics - Charles Campion - came out and said hello, so I asked whether he liked my dish. "Loved it," he said. Someone else asked what he thought of theirs; "total disaster," so at least I knew he wasn't just being nice. Ah, well.
Watching the programme was interesting; I had no idea how it was going to pan out with the critics and judges. This time I was properly nervous watching the show, because the critics could have been awful. As it was William Sitwell made a barking suggestion - keep the peas whole - which thankfully received the "whu?" it deserved, and although JBR thought it was underseasoned I am positive that it was fine. Still, not to worry; I at least produced something to go on the plates, and it could have been so much worse.
So concludes this adventure in Tellyland, where the sun always shines and the grass is an incredible shade of green.
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