Jamie finds a new twist.. just in clemen-tine
YOU can only imagine the forward planning phone call between Channel 4 and Jamie Oliver earlier this year.
Channel 4: “Jamie, we want to do a Christmas special. They always rate really well.”
Jamie: “Do we have to? Surely everyone knows how to cook their Christmas lunch by now. Anyway, I’ve run out of twists.”
Channel 4: “Oh. Only we were thinking of sending you and the crew on a jolly to a picturesque village in the Italian Alps.”
Jamie (shouting): “Jools, have you seen my collection of terrible Christmas jumpers?
“I’m off to work. You’ll be okay with the kids for a few days, yeah?”
And lo, Jamie’s Italian Christmas was born. And Britain’s foremost celebrity chef did stand on yonder picture-postcard mountainside and did deliver this message. He did say: “I know we all like our Christmases to be the same, but we can always improve and we always like something new every year.”
To the cynical ear, that might have sounded a little too much like someone trying too hard to convince themselves. However, against all the odds Jamie had managed to come up with a new twist – clementines. Clementines in your pasta sauce. Clementines in your cocktails. Clementines in your tiramisu.
All we needed was for Jamie to put on his best Mockney voice and launch into a chorus of: “Oh, mi darlin’ clementines.”
Fortunately for us, he was too busy preparing his special clementine-fed turkey for the outdoor oven.
Okay, I made that bit up. He didn’t really have a clementine-fed turkey.
But he’s probably saving that one up for next Christmas.