I've been off for a few days hence a lack of posts (back on Thursday), but I noticed a comment on one of my old Come Dine With Me posts which came in today from someone at Channel 4. Apparently they're now doing a Come Dine With Me Homemade which allows us all to have a dinner party, take some snaps and upload them to the Channel 4 website. This is a quick post because I'm in between enjoying the joys of a few days off work – working around the home. I think I'd rather be in work. I read an ...

I FIND chain restaurants as easy to digest as the news that Jordan has decided she doesn't want any more tabloid publicity. Don't worry, Katie Price hasn't dropped that bombshell just yet... so the Red Tops don't have to scratch their collective heads and wonder what to write about when the Ashley Cole and John Terry sagas start to bore the public. I'm not normally a fan of chain restaurants because they're more often than not just frozen food reheated and sometimes cost as much for a meal as lining the pockets of a local restaurant using local produce and suppliers. But I'm ...

Guillaume Rabillat from Bastille on the Lisburn Road tells me that Raymond Blanc is a fantastic guy. The manager of the Lisburn Road-based French restaurant had the good fortune to get chatting with Blanc at an event a while back and enjoyed a great evening with him (incidentally I had an interview with Guillaume in Monday's paper, which you can read here). Blanc is someone who, for some reason not even known to myself, I have largely ignored when it comes to TV and chefs. I have no idea why. I did ...

Yeah, that's right, you heard me. McDonald's, the Golden Arches, the fatty and salty foods and the slimming helpers Weight Watchers. It's like seeing a 55-year-old man going through a midlife crisis – wearing a leather jacket and with an 18-year-old blonde on his arm. The instant reaction is, eh? I can see what the attraction is for McDonald's and the 55-year-old but on the other side of the coin. Eh? I should hasten to add that this is all happening in New Zealand where WW is endorsing some of the McD's ...

I received an email yesterday from one of the best local food blogs Chilli & Chocolate (certainly it has to be the best local blog for recipes)... Anyone who reads here regularly will know my recipes are very few and very far between! The couple who run the blog are hosting an evening at Direct Wine Shipments on Friday 12th March, which sounds like it'll be a very good night. It won't just be wine that is on offer, there'll be a handful of other companies there too – Co Couture, Clydesdale ...

Last week's Come Dine With Me was hilarious, as it always is. Brian Moore was the standout contestant – on the first night (a James Bond themed night that saw two embarrassed girls covered in gold paint) he was so drunk he kept saying everything was phenomenal. His closed drunken eyes were a common theme throughout the week. But it was his menu that made for the biggest laugh. Leave aside the fact that Brian decided to create his whole menu from a budget store (the starter was a cheese pâté, which was basically cheese all mixed up and a bean dish ...