FIVE MINUTES WITH... SIMON RIMMER Simon Rimmer is one of television’s most talkedabout chefs. He talks about why he’s doing his bit for those less fortunate in Africa, how he’s settling in at Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, and tells of the only downside to his job
Tell us a bit about the ONE brand and how you’re helping out? I was approached a while ago about doing some recipe development and cooking some dishes. But once I got to know about the brand, I wanted to get far more involved with it. It was started by a guy called Duncan Goose - he went on a round-the-world motorcycle trip, ended up in Africa and was at a school where there were 25 children on the register, 10 of them missing. You assume that they would be off doing a project, but it was explained that they didn’t have the energy to walk to school because of what they called ‘the hungry season’. There was no food around. Goose came back and thought this seemed ludicrous and so he set up the One brand and the principle of it is that all the products that they do, all the profits from the foods that are sold in this country, go to fund projects in Africa, such as setting up hen coups and teaching hen husbandry, so there’s always chickens and eggs, and right the way through the year, there’s always food available.
No. We got commissioned to do 10 episodes in 2006 and we were never off air, it was a continuous run. But it’s absolutely beyond my wildest dreams, it’s incredible. The BBC initially said that if it could get up to 400,000 viewers, they’d be really happy. Well at one point (recently), I think we had 1.37 million, so we’d surpassed that.
How did you feel when you heard the show had been axed? Were you mentally planning your Sundays for the next few months? I was obviously initially gutted that it was going. We’d had a great run of over five years, however it was good to know the show wasn’t being axed because people didn’t like it - it was purely down to budget cuts. I’ve always worked over weekends so it was more a case that I’d probably be back in the restaurant if I wasn’t in London filming.
It’s great news that Channel 4 have snapped it up - you must be over the moon? What’s so great about your recipes for it and why did you choose them? The recipes themselves are very straightforward. We did chorizo scotch eggs, an earl grey tea, then there’s the bread and butter pudding, and a lamb tikka with cauliflower pancakes. So they’re lovely, straight-forward, robust dishes.
Did you ever expect something for the weekend to be as popular as it was? 82
We went from being gutted to finding out the great news that the new show had been picked up. It all happened really quickly, with contracts being signed off then into rehearsals and in no time at all we were doing the first live show on March 25.
the kitchen. We had a great first week. Nothing went wrong surprisingly, and we got a whole new raft of followers on Twitter too. For a first show, we couldn’t have asked for more.
You’ve done that many tv projects now - which has been your favourite and why? SFTW without a shadow of a doubt, just because it’s been one of those programmes that doesn’t feel like work, and I think if you can do something where you think, ‘I’m getting paid to do this’, then that has to be a good case. I’ve made some good friends and it has genuinely changed my life, from a profile point of view; from someone who pottered around doing bits of telly over the years, to being on a show like that which everybody knows has been brilliant. So that’s top of the list. I used to do a really lovely show called Grub’s Up, all about local produce, which is obviously very dear to my heart and again it wasn’t about me, it was about the producing, and about the produce, and about my local region which I’m massively proud of.
Is there one meal you will never tire of cooking?
How does Sunday Brunch differ from sftw?
Lots, really. I still love cooking, even after 21 years of being a chef. I never tire of cooking duck, of cooking fish, or curries, or stews, but I also never tire of making cakes with my kids. It’s constantly on-going and constantly changing as well.
It’s a different show and there are different elements to it. But I’m still doing the cooking in
Simon Rimmer hosts Sunday Brunch on Channel 4, Sundays at 10am.