The Plonker Club

I’m asking all of the Gordon Ramsay fans of the world to unite and help your Australian brothers and sisters! Keep reading to find out how!

In Australia, Channel Nine has the rights to most of the current shows featuring Gordon Ramsay (and maybe some future ones such as cookalong live and possibly a Hell’s Kitchen??!!)

Now on the channel Nine website, a poll is running asking if they should bring back Gordon Ramsay to the television screens of Australian viewers (even though they have announced the next series of Kitchen Nightmares is screening next month)

At the time of writing, the scores were 53% yes and 47% no.

On behalf of all Australian Gordon Ramsay fans – please take thirty seconds out of your day and follow this link to vote yes!
http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/

Please, please, please vote now (and often!)

David Driscoll
The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite
www.theplonkerclub.com

Ding, Ding, and now over to our announcer – in the red corner (no mention of their weight) from the fighting city of ………

The Plonker Club counter says that it is less than 3 days until Gordon Ramsay’s puts the latest group of wannabe head chefs through Hell in order to futher their careers, but mostly for our entertainment.

As has now become traditional, Hell’s Kitchen will start with two teams, separated on the basis of gender, beginning with the first half of the ladies that make up the red team!

Andrea

Andrea - Gordon Ramsays Hells Kitchen Season 5

Hometown: Reading, PA
Age: 30
Occupation: Line Cook
Experience:
Line Cook, Beverly Hills Tavern
Owner/Operator, White Linen Catering
Private Chef, Sugar Foods Inc.
Line Cook, The Chef’s Toque Catering

Kitchen Experience:
6 years

Culinary School:
Bachelor’s in Culinary Arts Management from The Culinary Institute of America

Notes:
Andrea is underestimated in the kitchen due to her petite size and because she is a woman, but that is exactly how she likes it. Andrea says that when they hired her at the Beverly Hills Tavern that they got a two for one deal since she is not only the Line Cook but does many of the duties of a Sous Chef.

Carol

Carol - Gordon Ramsays Hells Kitchen Season 5

Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Age: 30
Occupation: Sous Chef
Experience:
Chef, Peerless Restaurant
Sous Chef, Northshore Brasserie
Executive Sous Chef, The Orangery
Chef and Kitchen Manager, Edison Park Steakhouse
Cook, Mesa Grill in Caesar’s Palace

Kitchen Experience: Â
4 years

Culinary School:
Le Cordon Bleu of Las Vegas

Notes:
Carol’s petite size doesn’t reflect her huge passion for the craft of cooking. This married mother of two works in the only fine dining establishment in Knoxville, Tennessee but, plans on moving when she wins Hell’s Kitchen

Coi

Coi - Gordon Ramsays Hells Kitchen Season 5

Hometown: Austin, TX
Age: 22
Occupation: Café Cook Experience:
Pantry Chef (Tournant), Satellite Bistro & Bar
Garde Manger Manager, Dow Chemical
Garde Manger, Omni Hotel

Kitchen Experience:
8 years

Culinary School:
Art Institute of Houston

Notes:
Coi appears to be sugar and spice and everything nice, but watch out, because there appears to be a storm brewing in this fiery Texan! This self-proclaimed diva in the kitchen wants to show America that a girly-girl can win Hell’s Kitchen. Although she started cooking at a very young age, it was not until a high school culinary arts course that she realized she had a knack for being in the kitchen. Coi hopes her years of experience pay off in Hell’s Kitchen.

Colleen

Colleen - Gordon Ramsays Hells Kitchen Season 5

Hometown: Papillion, NE
Age: 41
Occupation: Cooking School Instructor Experience:
Chef/Owner/Instructor, The Classy Gourmet
Cooking demo for Cox

Kitchen Experience:
14 years

Culinary School:
Self-taught

Notes:
This happy-go-lucky, “A” personality type chef maintains that she did not choose cooking as a profession, but that it chose her. Colleen currently owns and runs her own cooking school. This self-employed mother of 3 has gotten by with not only her bubbly personality, but her strong cooking skills. Always a perfectionist, she calls people that do not know anything about food “food idiots.” Colleen is a team player, and a doer, and wants to continue her culinary journey in Hell’s Kitchen

Round two of introductions for the red team coming shortly (after these words from our sponsors)

David Driscoll
The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite
www.theplonkerclub.com

As I type this, there is only 2 days 19 hours 31 minutes and 05 seconds left until we get Gordon Ramsay and Hell’s Kitchen Season Five, according to the counter on the Plonker Club Website – the home of the Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite!

Now it is time to introduce those brave cooks who will be keeping us entertained (at their own expense) and will be the topics of numerous blogs, conversations, news reports and much gossip as well as opinion.

Their photos now appear on the chopping block on the Official Fox Homepage http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/ – along with Gordon Ramsay and the other sous chefs!

In case you weren’t aware, Fox is really embracing Web 2.0 and there is also an official Facebook page for Hell’s Kitchen – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hells-Kitchen/13427984738

Only 2 more sleeps (maybe one – I might not be able to sleep tomorrow night!)

David Driscoll
The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite
www.theplonkerclub.com

Some limited information is now available on the next Gordon Ramsay Cook Book – Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Pub Food. We now have some hints on some of the dishes that will be included!

In this outstanding new cookbook, Gordon Ramsay teams up with Mark Sargeant to showcase the best of British cooking. Packed full of sumptuous and hearty traditional recipes, Gordon Ramsay’s Great British Pub Food is perfect for relaxed, homely and comforting cooking. Pubs were once a place where you could always guarantee good, simple, cheap food and a great Sunday roast, but when the steak houses and fast food chains arrived the good home cooking from the pub kitchens was replaced with tasteless, defrosted meals. Then came the gastropubs, which weren’t much better, serving mediocre food at restaurant prices.

That’s why when Gordon Ramsay and Mark Sargeant set up the Gordon Ramsay pubs in London they wanted to produce the sort of simple but delicious British classics that warm the cockles of your heart and to serve them at affordable pub prices. Dishes like rich, hearty Chicken and Smoked Bacon Pie, mouth-watering Gloucestershire Sausages with Grainy Mustard Mash and Red Onion Marmalade and indulgent Treacle Tart – classics that have stood the test of time. Now Gordon has gathered his favourite British recipes into one sumptuous collection so you can invite your friends round, serve some good, English ale and cook the best in traditional pub food classics in your own home.

In case you just got off a deserted island and don’t know who Gordon Ramsay is, here is the profile that Amazon keeps on the great man and his protege!

Gordon Ramsay’s radical career change at 17 years old led him to London and to huge success as chef, restaurant-empire-builder and TV star. Gordon has published ten bestselling recipe books and has starred in the hugely successful television series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen, The F Word and Gordon Ramsay’s Cookalong Live. In 2006 he was appointed OBE.

Mark Sargeant first worked with Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine before spending three years as Sous Chef at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. He left there to open the highly acclaimed Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s where he is Head Chef. Most recently, Mark has been overseeing the opening of Gordon Ramsay’s pubs The Narrow, The Devonshire and The Warrington, which opened to excellent reviews and press coverage.

I’ve pre-ordered my copy!

David Driscoll
Chief Plonker at The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite
www.theplonkerclub.com

Within a day of Gordon Ramsay bringing back Hell’s Kitchen to US audiences, he will be appearing on Channel 4 in the UK for Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare, which sees Gordon hits the streets, campaigning for viewers to eat locally.

I can only hope our UK cousins embrace torrents a little faster than they did with Cookalong Live. I didn’t see this fantastic Gordon Ramsay show for weeks after it aired. Shows from the US I can normally get within an hour of the show finishing – so get to work of English friends – so the rest of us can get our fix or Gordon Ramsay post haste!

This show is part of the Great British Food Fight (check out their very funny ad here ) and according to the Channel 4 website, in Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare, Gordon Ramsay will be campaigning for viewers to start patronising local restaurants. One that is featured, was part of the ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, fillmed in the middle of last year and hoepfully airing soon!

With a global, multi-million pound, restaurant empire and a constellation of Michelin stars under his belt, Gordon knows a thing or two about running a successful commercial kitchen. But other eateries are not so fortunate and, all too often, ambitious dreams turn to kitchen nightmares as the practicalities of getting punters in and keeping them loyal, prove too difficult to pull off.

Gordon’s brought his own brand of tough love to failing kitchens on both side of the Atlantic and tried to turn the fortunes of dozens of restaurants, from curry houses to soul-food shacks, by changing the way they’re managed.

This time it’s the diners he’s reaching out to, encouraging the man on the street to put his money where his hungry mouth is.

He will also be passing on tips to restaurant owners on how best to cope with the credit crunch.

Watch Ramsay’s Great British Nightmare, coming to Channel 4, Friday, 30th January, 9pm.

Two new Gordon Ramsay shows in one month (not including the stray Kitchen Nightmares Episode from the US) – this will be a great year. I wonder of Gordon has an special recipes to celebrate the Chinese year of the Ox?

David Driscoll
The Plonker Club
The Unofficial Gordon Ramsay Fansite
www.theplonkerclub.com