Jamie Oliver‘s advice for a stress-free Christmas
FATHER-of-five Jamie Oliver shares his secret to hosting the perfect festive feast — even when those “slightly gompy” relatives who can’t be trusted in the kitchen turn up.
IT’S not so much that Jamie Oliver doesn’t suffer fools, it’s just that he’s come up with very effective strategies for dealing with them — especially at Christmas.
“You need to review who’s coming for the occasion,” is his advice. “Sketch out any sort of liabilities; there’s always one.”
Oliver reveals that it’s he, rather than wife Jools, who’s in charge of the festive meal, which usually involves an influx of family and friends to his house. The chef admits that with a long guest list and an ever-expanding brood — he and Jools welcomed their fifth child, son River Rocket, into the family this year — he doesn’t do all of the cooking.
“I delegate a few bits and pieces at Christmas,” he says, but adds that there are always those who can’t be assigned complicated culinary tasks.
“Normally most people have one slightly gompy brother coming. I look at who’s coming and think, ‘Right, they can’t cook, their common sense is low, so I’m going to give them a specific brand of whiskey and port and get them to buy that. How can they get that wrong?’
“Andy the Gasman is my version of that,” he says of a childhood friend, who’s still in Oliver’s inner circle. “You know, absolutely can’t be trusted for anything other than following a text.”
Speaking to Stellar on the phone from his home in the UK, it’s a rare day off for the culinary juggernaut. Although technically not on the clock, he’s still busy running his global empire from the house he shares with his large family.
“I’m at home today; it doesn’t happen often,” he says. “The kids are on holidays, so I’ll be doing a bit of work from home.”
The chef and best-selling author — he’s sold more than 37 million books worldwide — has recently published Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook, which, while offering his take on seasonal classics, also primes readers to embrace the possibility of a festive calamity.
In the dedication he pays tribute to his late nan and recounts the Christmas meal when her paper crown caught on fire as she was reaching for some stuffing, setting her hair alight before the flames were eventually extinguished by Oliver’s father.
“When you think about your most vivid food memory, it’s pretty much got to be Christmas. When my poor nan became a human candle and got all roughed up by my dad to put her out, for a five-year-old boy, that was quite traumatic,” he says with a laugh.
While that memory marked his childhood, Oliver says he, Jools and their offspring — Poppy Honey Rosie, 14, Daisy Boo Pamela, 13, Petal Blossom Rainbow, seven, Buddy Bear Maurice, six, and newborn River Rocket — follow their own traditions each year.
“Santa does go around the tree and leaves quite a lot of mess when he comes, with footprints and food; we get into it.
“I’m very much aware now that slowly the Christmases will fade from one style to another as the kids get older. Right now we’re in the amazing stage.”
Even still, Oliver has given careful thought to how he wants to celebrate Christmas this year, and has opted to downsize festivities.
“I’ve pretty much hosted it for the past 12 or more years,” he says, sounding a tad weary.
“We made a call this year, because with all the sisters and brothers, there was 45 of us. So I cancelled everyone for Christmas and we’re just going to do it for us, and they’re gonna come on Boxing Day. Forty-five people is like a restaurant; I don’t want to run a restaurant on my Christmas Day.”
It’s not just at Christmas that Oliver manages the domestic kitchen. While he says Jools is “definitely the boss at home”, meals are his responsibility.
“In the kitchen, I take control; I always cook at home — she likes that and I take it all on.”
While that’s hardly surprising, given his profession, Oliver believes more men have become skilled domestic cooks over the past couple of decades.
Dismissing the notion that women still take on more than the lion’s share of food preparation in the home, Oliver credits his work with helping to make it more appealing to men.
“I’d like to think we’re in the middle of a bit of a renaissance of men cooking.
“When we started The Naked Chef, heading towards 20 years ago, men and women were pulling a 10-, 12-, 13-hour day, getting home and sitting down in front of the TV. All the fellas would turn around and ask, ‘What’s for dinner?’ and the girls were like, ‘Why aren’t you going to do something?’
“I think The Naked Chef’s success was built off a slightly hyperactive, overenthusiastic cook, which was me. I think the metaphor was kind of, ‘If he can do it, then surely I can.’”
I got chased by one massive dude once, and I thought I was going to get a proper kicking; he pinned me up against the wall
But even Oliver knows that his relationship with his male fan base has been a slow burn.
“By memory there was a huge feminine audience, and the men couldn’t stand me for like three years. It was a little bit worrying at some points; I got roughed up a few times,” says Oliver.
He’s not speaking figuratively, either. While he has caught criticism over the years for his cheeky-chappy persona, he says there were times, shortly after The Naked Chef was first broadcast in 1999, when men physically threatened him in public.
“On a number of occasions, to be honest,” he says.
“I got chased by one massive dude once, and I thought I was going to get a proper kicking; he pinned me up against the wall. He said: ‘If I had seen you a month ago, I would have beaten the sh*t out of you, but actually I’ve learned to cook. In actual fact, I think I’m better than you; go on, move on.’
“After about three years, boys started to realise cooking wasn’t just for girls — that cooking actually could get you girls — then they started to like me.
“If I go to demonstrations now, with a couple of thousand people, it’s possibly 60 per cent men. Years ago it was all women.”
But his current male fan base is not without its complications; Oliver admits he’s often witnessed men in his audience second-guess themselves.
“I’ve done a lot of book signings over the years, because before social media it was one of the ways that I could talk to the audience. You ask each person a couple of questions and try to do a little survey on your work and make sure you’re getting it right.
“Sometimes you’ll be there for about three hours, and there’ll be like a proper blokey bloke, built like a brick sh*thouse, in the queue. He’s so excited, but when he finally gets in front of me, he feels like a twat.
“It’s like a consistent thing that’s always happened. These blokey blokes, at the last minute, don’t want to give me a hug and say, ‘Thanks so much.’ They start to abuse me and take the piss out of me and start being quite horrible,” he says with a laugh.
“You start to realise it’s a kind of ‘Oh my god, what am I doing here? I can’t believe I’ve actually waited two hours’ syndrome. And now I know, I try to redirect the conversation so I can make them not feel not manly.”
He’s also had some high-profile detractors, too, with fellow UK chef Gordon Ramsay calling Oliver a “one-pot wonder” in 2009. Oliver retaliated during a trip to Australia last year, saying Ramsay was “deeply jealous” of him.
Although he later admitted he wished he hadn’t made the comments, Oliver may have had a point. His net worth is estimated to be more than $400 million, while Ramsay’s is thought to be closer to $200 million. While neither chef is in danger of crying poor, it’s easy to see why Oliver called out the root of their rivalry as envy.
I constantly tell my kids that I’m cool, and they look at me as if they’ve smelt something really bad
And behind Oliver’s laid-back banter, it’s clear a sharp business acumen has helped build that lucrative empire which takes in revenue from books, a magazine, the production company that creates his TV shows, smartphone apps and restaurants around the world, including Australia.
If you were in any doubt about how he runs his global business, the fate of Jamie’s Italian restaurants here is quite illustrative. When it was announced in June this year that the hospitality company that owned the local franchise rights, Keystone Group, had been placed into receivership, Oliver was reported to be furious. He was said to be particularly incensed that the six Australian eateries under his name — which were still very popular with diners, had always turned a profit and were some of his best performing restaurants worldwide — were part of the Keystone collapse and would be put on the market by the receivers. Oliver clearly didn’t enjoy his name being associated with Keystone’s failure.
News came early in November that the Jamie Oliver Group had been nominated the preferred bidder and would be buying back the local franchise for Jamie’s Italian restaurants, in a move that ensured Oliver could keep a closer eye on his restaurants’ operations in Australia. Local staff are also said to be delighted with the sale, as it means their new boss is one of the most well-known chefs in the world. A statement announcing the purchase reiterated that Keystone going into receivership “was in no way a reflection on the performance or success” of Oliver’s restaurants.
But no matter how much fame and prosperity Oliver has achieved in his 17-year career, his family provide the ultimate reality check — particularly at Christmas.
“I constantly tell my kids that I’m cool, and they look at me as if they’ve smelt something really bad and they just don’t buy it in the slightest. Like every other dad on the planet, I have the same issues with trying to just let them know that I’m funny, I’m cool; I haven’t been able to legitimately land any of that yet,” he says.
And while his family’s festive rituals include Oliver having a nap in the afternoon, for the chef the best part of the day naturally comes back to their yuletide lunch.
“I think it’s really nice if everyone does a little bit, then everyone’s really proud of the whole thing. Obviously back at the ranch, I’m holding the whole thing together with the meat, vegies, potatoes, gravy and all that malarky. Before you worry about everything, you get your meat, potatoes and gravy down. If they’re gorgeous, then everything else is just propping it up, really. And Jools does the table and makes it all look pretty.
“The perfect Christmas is that balance between enough stuff that you’re really comfortable with, but then a few surprises. Everyone’s got their rhythm and their pattern; when the time comes we all sit in the same place. Why? I don’t know, we never agreed to it. There are these other little things; I normally end up in front of the fire asleep, generally with Only Fools And Horses in the background. That seems to happen every year, somehow. But these days I get woken up by Buddy jumping from a great height onto me, which is not agreeable. It’s a new tradition, and it’s only happened for the past two or three years. All I’m gonna say is what goes around, comes around.”
Jamie Oliver’s Christmas Cookbook (Penguin, $55) is out now.
Originally published as Jamie Oliver‘s advice for a stress-free Christmas