Grow Your Own Magazine

This a piece from the Independent about 3 years ago, which I'd forgotten all about but REALLY made me laugh when I first read it. Just before Ainsley Harriott finished trying to "crack the States" - this appeared. It's the last quote that makes me cackle. We in the UK clearly do not value C-list TV chef Ainsley anywhere near enough.



"We are sitting in Harriott's plush office backstage at studio F, between his live morning show and his taped afternoon show. He has just been interviewed by a woman from People magazine. He has already been profiled by the mass-circulation USA Today. In the street, passers-by yell his catchphrase at him: "Hey Ainsley," they shout. "What are you like?


In the last two months, the name Ainsley has even started to appear on American birth certificates. Yet Ainsley Harriott wears his burgeoning fame, as he wears his pink tank-top, without any discernible self-consciousness. And he is clearly adored by his colleagues, many of whom are used to presenters who behave like prima donnas. All the same, the warm-up man, Al Rosenberg, perhaps just slightly overcooks the praise, assuring me in deadly seriousness, "There ain't nobody here who wouldn't take a bullet for Ainsley. God bless England for sending him."

I think he's great!
I've done tons of ironing over the years watching 'Ready steady cook'....I even look at what other peeps are handing in at the till and try and work out what I'd make for supper with what they are buying!!!

I think we should invite him onto the Vine....he'd fit in a treat!!