Who is Claire Sweeney?

[nmg]

ias mailed me last Friday to ask if I'd be interested in taking part in a television programme that was being filmed at Bath Uni on Sunday. The blurb that she'd seen said something about free food, which is always a bonus, so we said yes.

The programme was an episode of Chef vs Britain, which should air on daytime ITV1 some time in May, and is a cross between Masterchef and Can't Cook, with an amateur chef competing with a celebrity professional chef (Gino somebody off This Morning). It's presented by Claire Sweeney (who is she and why is she famous?) and had a group of fifteen assorted students, academics and other scroungers as tasters. It was our job to blind taste the two dishes and decide which was best. Pick the amateur and he gets a cookery course, pick the professional and the amater gets a kitchen knife.

Food was good - two fish stews with a variety of shellfish and crustacea (monkfish, clams, mussels, razor fish, crevettes, prawns, scallops). Unfortunately, I've managed to slightly chip a front tooth on an errant piece of shell in the amateur dish, but it was the tastier of the two...