Christmas, Turkey, Bloggers and Meeting Marco Pierre White

I am one of those people, who doesn’t believe in wishing my life away or looking too far ahead to things and saying “I can’t wait”. Because I can wait. I live for the moment and appreciate every single day. That is one of the reasons I don’t like to think about Christmas, until December.However my blog, has made me realise that just sometimes, you need to think ahead, especially for something you plan to write about! My blog has given me some amazing opportunities and one of those was with Lean On Turkey in September and was about… Christmas! I traveled up to London’s Chelsea Football Club, to the restaurant of celebrity chef, Marco Pierre White. There I found some mighty delicious breakfast pastries, tea, coffee, wine and soft drinks on tap and lots of brilliant bloggers, whom I have great respect for.

We were welcomed into the kitchen of Marco Pierre White, to learn how to cook the perfect Turkey in preparation for Christmas day! I have to be honest, Marco’s initial reaction to two teams of mummy bloggers in his kitchen, seemed to be one of sheer terror, when he realised we’d all come in full cheekiness mode!

When asking a seemingly innocent question, I got told “You’re a funny one aren’t you!”, which made me think perhaps my question may have been of the blonde variety!

Marco soon recovered from his bombardment of giggling women and was joking with the rest of us about “roasting two birds at once” (sorry if that’s a bit rude for the blog!).

So what did I learn?

• I need to invest in some sharper knives!!! Witnessing Marco chopping up bones (really easily) with a cleaver, made me realise that my blunt knives (that struggle to cut through a block of cheese) are really not going to fit the bill.

  

• I’d quite like an assistant (or two) to hand me stuff and wash things up for me, while I cook (like Marco has)!
• Turkey actually CAN be moist and delicious!

  

• How to make REAL gravy, including a low-iodine version, for when I am on my pre-radiotherapy diet.
• How to make cranberry sauce
• Stick to Turkey at Christmas – a three or four bird roast is impossible to cook each of the birds perfectly – at least one will always be overdone!

  

I will (very soon) blog the tips I learnt from Marco, for making gravy, cranberry sauce and cooking the perfect turkey.

This was without a doubt, one of the most fun blog events I have been to. We all had such a giggle and the food and wine was first rate. I’d recommend anyone going to Chelsea Football Club pops into Marco’s restaurant for dinner! I really enjoyed chatting with all the bloggers, It was particularly great to chat to some of my blog idols, who I rarely get the chance to talk with… Jen Howse (Jenography), Susanna Scott (A Modern Mother), Tanya Barrow (Mummy Barrow), Vic Welton (Verily Victoria Vocalises) and Marianne Weekes (Mari’s World).

I had a lovely one to one chat with Marco too, about my low-iodine diet and about Cheltenham, as he recently re-opened a restaurant here. I’m not one to ever get star struck anyway, but it was nice that he was so down to earth and normal. He wrote me a Christmas card, but it’s not legible, so I’ve no idea what it says; and he wished me well with my Cancer treatment. We all got meat thermometers as Christmas presents too! Look out for my Turkey tips coming soon!

Disclaimer: My travel costs and time were compensated for attending this event.