We Love Cooking!:
the afternoon show

I am going to be on The Afternoon Show today on RTE 1 @ 4.00pm. I'm going to be cooking two dessert recipes which are suitable for people with diabeties. Tune in, may award may make an appearance! :)

The whole show went fantastically smooth but... disaster- I forgot my camera so no pics from the show unfortunately! But the video should be available on the RTE player tomorrow morning.

I cooked a few of my favourite recipes from the book and the blog, Chicken Thigh Supper, Med Veg with Bulgur Wheat, and one of the tastiest pastas, Sunblushed Tomato, Goats Cheese and Basil, Penne!

The pace on the Afternoon Show is quite relaxed and because you shop for your own ingredients it means you see the demo from start to finish and are a lot more hands on. I suppose, looking back, I was totally overwhelmed by the Market Kitchen experience, having never cooked on TV before and being surrounded by big names in the UK food world, whereas I have been interviewed on The Afternoon Show before when I was in Eurosong, so I knew the set up and I visited last week to watch another chef do their demonstration, which put me at ease!

After some late night cooking last night, I packed up my little car with all the ingredients and headed over to RTE, making a quick pit stop in Superquinn to grab some last minute items, a bottle of red wine, bulgur wheat and 2 aubergines! When I arrived it was just a case of setting up all the ingredients, choosing all the props, plates and bowls I needed from the prop room and just thinking through everything I needed.

We did a quick rehearsal and I met the lovely ladies, Maura and Sheana, who present the show and they were so nice, Sheana spent the afternoon telling me she loved the book and was definitely going to try some of the recipes! Before I knew it we were live and I was grinning like a fool down the lens of the camera and it turned out my old pal, Dustin The Turkey was on the show as well and he was a charming as ever, I gave him a few good turkey recipes before he left!

The funniest part of the whole experience was at the end of the show. I had been pre warned that the crew love getting stuck in to the food that's cooked on the show, but nothing prepared me for the eight people crowded around all the food like vultures digging in with forks! They all loved the food so happy days- empty plates are always the best form of a compliment for a cook!

Very exciting news, tomorrow I am going to be cooking up a storm with the lovely ladies Maura and Sheana on The Afternoon Show on RTE 1 @ 4.00pm. I actually went in to see the show being filmed last week and got some great tips from one of the regular chefs Richie Wilson who is the head chef at the Morrisson Hotel in Dublin. Richie told me the key to cooking on a live show like this was to be prepared so that if time starts to run out, you already have ingredients ready to go so you can skip steps if you have to! Nerve-wracking or what! I'm going to be cooking recipes from my book so fingers crossed for tomorrow! :)