Reality TV is all the rage with scarcely known celebrities eating bird food in a jungle somewhere remote, yet more celeb’s co-habit in a TV studio playing to the camera at every opportunity, and business people expose their hopes and dreams before big league entrepreneurs only, in most cases, to have them trashed with utter disdain or savagery in some cases. The victims, of course, know exactly what they are doing in exposing themselves to public humiliation that might just kick start a flagging, or yet to start, career, they know what to expect when they sign up.
The Great British Bake Off, however, appears to have turned baking into a semi-gladiatorial contest now, with truly nice ‘normal’ people strutting their stuff. There is only so much of other people cooking or baking that one can take on the television without one raiding the fridge.
From late August we can look forward to watching a Durham entrant in The Great British Bake Off in this this years programme on the BBC. Twenty years old Michael a London born student at the University of Durham, where he is reading politics and economics, is a participant putting all of his culinary skills on display. Those are handy subjects for someone who can clearly succeed at making dough…
We can look forward to watching fabulous cakes and buns galore being produced, and watch whilst the excellent Mary Berry and ever professional Paul Hollywood judge the results before demolishing towering cream filled, sugar glazed, perfections that someone has just spent hours producing. How do they do that without putting on an ounce of weight?
Best wishes go to Michael who is our medal hope in this Patisseries Olympiad, we will all urge him on with a cup of tea handy and a cream bun, one has to get into the spirit after all.
On a more serious note, it is enriching for all of us that baking, cooking, and entrepreneurial flair are rising well in our midst. Disciplines once seen as the back-room skills of the catering industry are, thanks to Reality Television, firmly up front with local youngsters studying such skills through College with a view to making a name for themselves in the booming catering sector and is surely the icing on the cake?
