Gordon Ramsay….

This blog is for my good buddy Chane!!! 

Chane is a self confessed addict of Gordon Ramsey…..so I thought I’d try to put together a blog with information about him, where he comes from, how he got this famous and maybe why he is so mean??

I hope to find a fact or two (I am not over shooting here) that Chane perhaps does not know about him?  Here’s hoping……

Gordon Ramsay (born November 8, 1966) is one of Britain’s highest profile chefs. He is one of only three chefs in the country to maintain three Michelin stars for their restaurant.

Gordon was born in Scotland but was brought up in England after his family moved to Stratford-upon-Avon (where Shakespeare lived). He played football as teenager for Oxford United F.C.’s youth side and was spotted by a scout for Rangers. He completed trials for the Scottish club and became a professional player at the age of 15. After suffering a knee injury that left him unable to regain full fitness he was released from the club. 

At the age of 19 Ramsay now turned his hand to cookery. He worked under Marco Pierre White and Albert Roux in London and Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon in Paris before becoming head chef of the newly-opened Aubergine restaurant in 1993. By 1996, the restaurant had been awarded two Michelin stars. In 1998 Ramsay opened his first own restaurant, the eponymous Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. The restaurant gained three Michelin stars in 1999, making Ramsay the first Scot to achieve the feat. From there his empire has expanded rapidly, first opening Petrus where six bankers famously spent over £44,000 on wine during a single meal in 2001, and then Amaryllis and later Gordon Ramsay at Claridges. Restaurants at the Dubai Creek and Connaught Hotels followed, the later branded under his protegee, Angela Hartnett’s, name. Ramsay’s company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, continued rapid expansion under Marcus Wareing as Chief Patron.

Ramsay has published six books on cooking and also appeared in two fly-on-the-kitchen-wall documentaries – Boiling Point in 1998 and Beyond Boiling Point in 2000. The series revealed that Ramsay is a hot-tempered man in the kitchen; he was seen yelling obscenities at his staff and throwing equipment around. Food critic A. A. Gill, who was famously ejected from Ramsay’s Chelsea restaurant (along with his dining companion Joan Collins), has said that Ramsay is “a wonderful chef, just a really second-rate human being”.

In 2004, Ramsay appeared in two British television series. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares aired on Channel 4, and saw the chef troubleshooting failing restaurants over a two-week period. Hell’s Kitchen was a reality show, which aired on ITV, and saw Ramsay attempt to train 10 British celebrities to be chefs, as they ran a restaurant on Brick Lane which opened to the public for the two-week duration of the show.

In what became ‘water cooler’ television, ‘Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen’ saw the volatile chef give a variety of micro-celebrities a memorable tongue-lashing, notably former Conservative MP Edwina Curry and Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie, who was actually moved to hit him after provocation. Ramsey branded the celebrity chefs a ‘bunch of whingers’ and complained to the press that most of the stars ‘hadn’t done a day’s work in their lives’

Gordon also enjoyed huge success in America with the television show Hell’s Kitchen USA. The American public loved him and in 2006, he took the Ramsay empire to America where he opened Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York.

The same year saw him gain further recognition with an OBE “for services to the hospitality industry” as well as receive the Catey award for ‘Independent Restaurateur of the Year’. The latter was an addition to his 1995 Catey gong for ‘Newcomer of the Year’ and 2000’s ‘Chef of the Year’, which made him only the third person to have won three Catey awards.

Ramsay’s success has been achieved through Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited, a company run in partnership with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, which takes care of all his restaurants, media and consultancy work. However, the chef, who is majority shareholder in the firm, fired his partner in 2010, sparking a public row that threatened to tear the family apart.

Unhappy with his dismissal over alleged misuse of company funds, Chris and Greta Hutcheson severed their ties with Ramsay and wife Tana, prompting the chef to write an open letter asking his mother in-law to rescind the decision for the sake of the family. The row came at a time when Ramsay’s restaurants were facing pressure as a result of the global financial downturn.

Gordon lives with his wife Tana and children in South London. He regularly jogs home from work late at night after a long shift in his central London restaurants.

Five completely random and somewhat pointless facts about Ramsay!!!!

No.5 He needs special shoes

The only thing bigger than Gordon Ramsay’s temper are his feet. “They’re size 15 and wide as well,” he says. In fact, Ramsay’s feet are so large that he has to have all of his shoes custom made and he recently had to send his Bentley Continental GT back to the manufacturer because the pedals were too small to accommodate his oversized brogues. Although having big footsies may sound like a headache, Ramsay insists that it isn’t all bad. “My wife Tana never complains,” he jokes.

No.4 His biggest fear involves vegetables

Gordon Ramsay has never hidden the fact that he adores meat. “I love any meat, whether it’s white meat or red meat,” he proudly declares. However, you might not know that his love of meat goes hand-in-hand with his hatred of vegetarians, who he believes are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys. “My biggest nightmare would be if my kids came up to me and said ‘Dad, I’m a vegetarian,’” he confesses. 

No.3 He thinks chefs are crazy

Gordon Ramsay knows that many folks believe he belongs in a lunatic asylum. However, he’s quick to point out that he isn’t the only chef who’s off his rocker. “Chefs are nutters,” he says. “They’re all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.” With that said, there are certain chefs Ramsay believes are a little kookier than others, like Jamie Oliver, whom he’s dismissed as being a “one-pot wonder,” and his former mentor Marco Pierre-White, whom he’s called a “bully” and a “savage.” Ramsay has also attacked the trio of Ainsley Harriot, Brian Turner and Anthony Worrall Thompson, referring to them collectively as the “Teletubbies.” Although it’s unlikely that any of his rivals will ever assault him, Ramsay insists he’s ready to take on all comers. “I have a black belt in martial arts and I keep incredibly fit,” he says. “Provided nobody’s going to lob a knife in the back of my head, I can pretty much stand up and stand strong.”

No.2 He’s ridden a buffalo

It turns out his employees aren’t the only things that Gordon Ramsay likes to ride. This 43-year-old British man hopped on a buffalo for the first — and last — time in 2007 during an excursion to a Scottish farm. “I was making the very first homemade fresh buffalo mozzarella,” he explains. “But of course, before we could make the mozzarella we had to get the buffalos first. So, we ran after them on quad bikes and I jumped on the back of one of these things and started riding it. It got so fast, I couldn’t jump off. I finally fell off the damn thing.” The incident left him with a few nicks and cuts and one seriously bruised ego.

No.1 His children convinced him to have cosmetic surgery

There’s a reason Gordon Ramsay’s trademark brow isn’t quite as furrowed as it used to be. This caustic chef recently underwent cosmetic surgery at the urging of his children. “I’ve got four children, and they’ve become ‘Dad, why have you got so many wrinkles on your face when Clementine’s daddy has no wrinkles?,’” he says. It hardly helped that journalists had begun comparing his famously craggy face to a map of Wales or a deflated rugby ball. Ramsay finally decided to bite the bullet and undergo a noninvasive laser treatment after he was awoken one morning by his 8-year-old daughter’s attempts to squeeze coins into his facial folds.

There ya have it!!!  Did you learn anything new?  I have to admit I laughed pretty damn hard when I read that his 8 year old was trying to squeeze coins into his facial folds, especially as I have teased Chane about the fact that his face looked like one of those puppies who have to much skin and just create all those rolls……

Just incase you were wondering:

What is a “Michelin Star”?

The term “Michelin Star” is a hallmark of fine dining quality — which is pretty funny considering that Michelin is, in fact, a tire company. But the Michelin company launched its first guide book in 1900 to encourage road tripping in France, and started anonymously reviewing restaurants by means of a three-star system in 1926.

Michelin awards 0-3 stars on the basis of anonymous inspections by reviewers. The reviewers are supposed to concentrate on the quality, mastery of technique, personality and consistency of the food, not on interior décor, table setting, or service quality.

There are annual Michelin guides available for countries and cities all over the world, mostly outside the United States. (In the U.S., there are Michelin guides to New York, San Francisco, and starting in 2010, Chicago. The company discontinued its Los Angeles and Las Vegas Guides in 2009.) But since Michelin started in France, the guides are sometimes accused of having a bias towards French cuisine/style/technique, or towards a snobby, formal dining style.

Michelin Stars Defined:

  • One star: A very good restaurant in its category.
  • Two stars: Excellent cooking and worth a detour. First class cuisine of its type.
  • Three stars: Exceptional cuisine and worth a special journey. Often extremely expensive, and with an extensive wine list.

 

 

little bit of this…..little bit of that…….

I’m Different!!!!!! I admit this………I freely admit it!!

I prefer months that have 31 days, I love stationery…just yesterday I spent roughly half hour extra in target just imagining what I could use all the cool back to school supplies for, I love browsing the supply cabinet at work, I can easily jam to the latest hits on 101.3 and flip to a country song and jam just has hard, I am accident prone….like an accident waiting for a place to happen.
I miss my family every single day of my life, this is always intensified around holidays, birthdays, and other family gatherings……this adversely affects my moods…..and I have no control over it!!
I love hockey and officiating hockey, I love working out, I love pursuing a healthy lifestyle but at the same time have a soft spot for french fries and as of late ice cream……I can be extremely strict with following this but also am a pro at been ‘bad’…..
I love having goals to meet, I live to make lists and cross things off of them.
I’ve always had really big dogs growing up, but since having two min pins for 7 years now I cannot imagine having big dogs again, I love these two dogs truly as if they were my children, and I’d do anything to keep them safe and take care of them.
I have a deep passion for learning, I feel it truly is the key to success, and it is so empowering.  I don’t like reading, if I could get all my books as audio books I would.  I am proud to say I have 6 letters behind my name, I am really excited to make it 9 and at one point was considering a PhD, but I think 12 might be overachiever?
I am proudly South African, I love the country and there is nothing in my life that will ever compare to pulling the flag over my head in each and every game I represented the country at 8 IIHF world championship tournaments.
I love Shrek…..I don’t know why…..I mean he is a green ogre but still, love it!!
I can’t get enough of electronics, phones, TV’s, laptops, computers, tablet computers………..Best Buy loves me!!!  I am constantly trying to learn more about them…..mainly computers…..software etc. there’s so much to learn and it’s constantly changing.
I love my job, my manager is the bomb and after years of being unhappy I am truly happy to wake up each day and go to work…….of course I love weekends too when I don’t go to work.
I really love been able to wake up next to the most amazing women every morning…..I am blessed to have her in my life and I hope she realizes how much she means to me and that I’d do anything in my power for her and I appreciate everything she’s done for me.
I prefer savory items to sweets, for the most part I don’t eat desserts, things that are green or black, and I am besotted with zebra brownies from Fleet Farm.
I get a real joy from making debits equal credits, especially after battling with a file and finally getting it to tie out……….Yes I am a geek!!!
I left the country of my birth at the age of 19 years and 4 months, I’ve been gone for 12 years this August 30th, I’d never been away from home for longer than 2 weeks on my own and I got on a plane and came to a country I knew NOTHING of and made my way in life…………courageous or stupid???  The jury’s still out……..
I hope to get my green card some time before 2020, I live in Oakdale, MN, and I’ll likely always live in this state, it is where I moved to, where I set up my life and now I can say where I am happy!!

so this one Sunday morning

So……there was this one Sunday morning!!  It started out like any other…..Jeanna went to work rather early and my lazy ass laid in bed (this implies it is after hockey season) and slept until roughly 10am!! At which point I very unenthusiastically woke up, rubbed the crap out of my eyes and attempted to sit up and face the day!!  Please bear in mind; in case you don’t know me well, I HATE MORNINGS!!!!!! Irrespective of what time they start!!

So I slowly but surely move around the bedroom and make my way out to the bathroom at which point I hear Tanner and Logan  (Logan AKA Chewbacca) start their morning noise making as they too wake up and prepare to be fed.  If you were to witness this you’d swear they hadn’t been fed in months!!  So I get done in the bathroom and head over to let them out of their kennels and give them each their quarter cup of “yummy deliciousness” otherwise known as Eukanuba small breed weight control dog food!!
Well as I look around for their bowls, which ‘someone’ in the house likes to play hide and go seek with, I notice their food container is EMPTY….. well WTH!?!? I remember Jeanna saying the day before that they needed food, and I said well then we must stop when we’re out at the store to get some………well now it appears that did not happen and I’m fresh out of food for them!!  What shall I do??  They’re all kinds of worked up and want their food now!!!!
No problem I think, I’ll give them a treat they can have soft food as there are tins of it upstairs.  So off I go, scurrying up the stairs, ready to be the hero and save the day!  Get upstairs and guess what?  The soft food is nowhere to be found…now I’m starting to get annoyed, what the hell am I going to do.  I am about to have two 9 pound dogs going into doggy revolt if I don’t feed them FIVE MINUTES AGO!!!!!!  I dig in their treat box and what do I find?  A sample size bag of Science Diet dog food and I have no option but to feed it to them and hope and pray that they don’t get upset stomachs (my puppies are very sensitive to changes in their diets).  I run with them back down stairs, trying at all costs to avoid tripping over one of
them as they keep turning back to ensure I’m not changing my mind or going back upstairs.  I feed them, they gobble it down and crisis is averted thank goodness!!

ONLY, at this point do I pick up my cell phone to text message Jeanna and ask her why we didn’t stop to get them food if they really were out (of course this can’t be my fault right?!).  Well……..turns out jokes on me!!!  They have a half full 20 pound bag of dog food in the laundry room.  Jeanna very quickly points this out and laughs at me (over text message) stating that she had said they were out of food because their smaller container we put it in to feed them from was empty!!
I kick my own ass for been a dumb ass and move on with my day…..its CEREAL time!!!

Well in case you didn’t hear read my blog prior to this one, let me quote a bit of it here;

When I eat cereal I need a BOWL……a deep bowl to get all my yummy rice krispies or corn flakes in the bowl with my milk and sugar and then there is indeed a need to not spill as its milk and no one wants milk on their couch, carpets etc.  Any sudden movements made with a bowl that is not deep enough could cause such an unwanted outcome.

Bearing this in mind I made my way upstairs, again, to prepare myself a feast of fantastic Kellogg’s rice krispies.  I open the cabinet to get my blue cereal bowl which, I might add, has the perfect depth for ideal cereal consumption.  What??  I can’t find any of the 3 blue bowls in the cabinet….where could they be?  In the sink……..oh no, they’re dirty!!! Now what will I do?  The normal human being would, of course, wash the bowl in order to use it………right?  Well no, not me!!  I whine to myself that none of the bowls I want to use are clean then I sort the dirty dishes in the sink after which I reluctantly take a white SHALLOW bowl out of the cabinet and make myself cereal.  A bowl of cereal that is not nearly as large as it could have been had my blue bowl been clean but nevertheless I came back downstairs and ate my cereal.
What cracks me up the most about this entire episode is the fact that I never considered just washing the blue bowl in order to be able to use it and the fact that I had this entire conversation with myself as no one else was at home!!!

The last note to my sorry tale is the fact that the dog’s wet food was in actual fact upstairs.  Since I’ve returned from Iceland I have been asking for bottles of water, a lot of it because I’ve been so sick and between coughing up a lung and having an extremely sore throat I’ve needed a lot of water.  I couldn’t find the package of bottles in the garage or in their ‘usual’ spot in the kitchen…..yet somehow Jeanna has been able to constantly produce these bottles of water when I was unable to locate them so after a while I gave up looking for these ‘hidden’ bottles of water.  When Jeanna got home and we had the discussion about my ‘interesting’ morning she said but the dog food is in the PANTRY and then she walked upstairs to do something.  I said WHAT?  Pantry?  I ran after her…..I bought this house 6 years ago and I’m pretty sure at that point I didn’t have a pantry and I don’t recall ever ‘getting one.’  To which she said to me “open the closet doors”……… I did!!  WOW!!!!!!!!  See the before and after pictures below:  (and YES I am extremely unobservant, like very, very unobservant!!)

BEFORE


AFTER

 

 

Pudding Package in Japan

I know many men and women alike who’d like this……..just saying!!!   And yes I really do find random crap on the internet BUT just remember someone else actually made this product….think about it, I’m simply sharing the knowledge, albeit useless knowledge!!

Source: http://www.popgive.com/2008/05/pudding-package-in-japan.html