I'll have them cook you something that you'll really love

[venta]

Yesterday, while in the gym, I was half-watching an ITV program called Dinner Date.

Dinner Date is a dating show, which aims to help its contestants "find true love through the love of food". Well, I can't fault that as an idea.

For those of you who are as ignorant of daytime TV as I usually am, it works as follows:

1. Five cooking-contestants each put together a menu for a three course meal.
2. One dining-contestant selects three of the menus, and goes in turn to the house of each cooking-contestant to have the menu cooked for them. Dining-contestant critiques the food.
3. Dining-contestant selects the favourite cooking-contestant.
4. All three cooking-contestants get dolled up to be taken out somewhere for dinner by dining-contestant; two will answer the door to find someone presenting them with dinner-for-one on a silver salver, the third will find dining-contestant waiting to take them to a restaurant.

At least, I think it does. I've half-watched it a few times, in five-minute chunks, with the sound off and ITV's rather bad auto-generated subtitles. I may have misunderstood something, or indeed got it totally wrong.

Now... I don't like stage 4, I think it's unnecessarily humiliating for people to wait for a knock on the door, then find themselves all dressed up with no place to go. Then again, I find an awful lot of TV unnecessarily humiliating.

My real gripe with it, though is that (as far as I'm aware) the cooking-contestants are female and the dining-contestant is male. Every time. Now, I don't watch it regularly so there's a chance that every other episode/series a girl gets to select her favourite from five guys, but somehow I doubt it. If they ever do one like that, I expect it'll be with a big fanfare: Dinner Date SWITCH!, in which OMG a MAN operates a COOKER! Hilarity might even ensue.

Anyway. I'm willing to pass over a whole bunch of other stuff (it's a dating show, what do you expect) but that does bug me. Having said that, ITV's pitch for it does describe dining-contestant as a "person", so maybe it is more unisex.

However. If you gloss over minor problems like, say, going on a blind date in someone else's house - which probably isn't a very good idea - I think cooking dinner for someone would be a great idea for a date.

The bit that actually interested me the most was the initial five minutes, when our Man reads through the five menus he's been offered and chooses three of them. In yesterday's episode, one menu was immediately discarded because it featured bobotie and he didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was either, but I'd have considered that a reason to go for that option. If I were putting together a menu, I'd be tempted to include something unusual just to weed out the finickerty eaters.

There does seem to be a definite theme to the menus: something fishy or prawns for a starter, lots of red meat for a main course, and something in the chocolate/strawberry region for pud. I'd be interested to know whether that would change if the cooking-contestants were boys.

So... imagine a blind date were coming to your house. How would you decide what to cook[*]? Would you go mainstream middle-of-the-road to suit all comers? Would you make it as weirdly interesting as possible to check their adventurousness? Cook your own favourites? Try to second-guess what a 37 year old actuary from Much Wenlock might like for dinner? Would you, in fact, approach the menu problem any differently if it were a date or a friend coming round?

My main consideration is, I think, that I'd aim towards things where a lot of preparation can be done ahead. I cooked for two dinner parties close together earlier in the year: the first featured beef Wellington, which was already assembled and chilling in the fridge when the first guests arrived an hour early. The second involved risotto, which was a daft choice because it needs constant attention for ages while people are arriving. Definitely Wellington is, for convenience and lack of last-minute panic, the way to go. Although it does mean I'm conforming to the big-lump-of-red-meat stereotype.

One thing I do rather fail at is putting together a menu. What starter/pudding goes with this main course? Obviously I wouldn't follow steak pie with apple pie[**] but the finer details are always a bit lost on me. Any advice on how to learn this skill greatly appreciated :)

[*] I arbitrarily decree that your blind date has exactly the same eating restrictions as you. So if you're vegetarian/Coeliac/keeping kosher/allergic to dairy produce/bound by an ancient family curse to eat only acorns, then so are they.

[**] Actually, it's pretty likely *I* would. But I accept my guests might not also be deranged pie obsessives. Wanting pie at every opportunity does not constitute an "eating restriction", as described above :)

In utterly unrelated news: I feel vaguely wrong listening to The Tea Party now. They are not (as far as I'm aware!) connected with the political movement.

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I would cook the same sort of things as I like to eat myself. If this date is going to go anywhere longer-term, they're going to have to get used to my cooking, so there's no point me making something misleadingly different on this one occasion.

I have a pretty lazy way of making risotto which involves putting all the liquid in at once and letting it absorb, like a pilau, so that wouldn't necessarily be ruled out for me. But I think something like a pie or casserole that you can do all the attention-occupying bits in advance and then just bung in the oven at the appropriate time is the sensible way to go. And starters and puddings can both be something chilled. So I might go for something like:

* mushroom pate with toast and olives;
* aduki bean, feta and spinach pie, with roast potatoes and green beans;
* my trademark gingernut, cointreau and cream pudding.

The only bits that need doing at the last minute are the toast and the beans, and they're only a few minutes.

I have no idea about putting together a menu either, so this is probably a bit stodge overload, but again that's something the person is going to have to get used to :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

One of the bits I managed to miss yesterday was the result of the three course meal cooked by the girl who said she'd never cooked anything more than beans on toast or scrambled egg before! (And, as far as I could tell from the subtitles, had to be guided by the off-screen voiceover as to how to use a garlic press!)

I agree one wouldn't want to do something too out-of-the-ordinary, but I think "making an effort"is valid :) (She clearly was, there wasn't a baked bean in sight...)

[lnr]

I can't be doing with garlic presses. The time they save you in preparation is more than lost in the faff of cleaning them. I've gone back to just peeling and chopping.

Not sure what I'd cook either.

Perhaps asparagus wrapped in parma ham with a poached egg and a lemony creme fraiche dressing and black pepper to start.

Duck leg cassoulet with crusty french bread for the main course.

And a raspberry creme brulee for afters. With fresh columbian coffee and some really good chocolates.

That's going a bit fancy, keeping a light starter to go with a heavy main course, and following your tip for stuff that can mostly be prepared in advance.

[lnr]

Friends coming round getting chilli and all the trimmings mind - so definitely a different approach. It's not one that lends itself immediately to adding a starter and pudding, but I suspect I could work on that :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Me too, on the garlic front. And you get the satisfaction of putting the side of the knife on top of the clove of garlic and smacking it as hard as you can, which is always fun.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm missing out! I usually just go for chopping into little cubes, no smacking involved.

I also can't really be pesetered with garlic presses.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Smacking makes it taste better -- giving it a good bruising breaks the internal cell walls, so the flavour comes out more. It's science and fun!

Smack first then chop, that's my motto (for garlic as for so many other things in life).

[zandev.livejournal.com]

I generally do the smacking primarily to make it easier to peel. :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Indeed, that's an added bonus!