The BBC’s Saturday Kitchen might prove more entertaining than usual this weekend when Nick Nairn guests on the show presented by James Martin.
I interviewed them both this week. Martin is plugging his new book. Called My Kitchen, it’s a collection of his recipes which champion seasonal British cooking. I met him a few years ago at Nick Nairn’s Cook School and thought he was a likable, loud and cheeky sort with a line in risque jokes that didn’t go down quite as well as they might have with some of the more serious-minded guests at the evening.
This time around, Martin was rather more subdued and, rather than chattering happily about his extensive collection of fast cars, preferred to talk about how much quiet enjoyment he was having pottering around his veg patch. This image of bucolic calm may have had something to do with Martin recently being at the centre of a media storm after he wrote a cyclist-bashing piece in his motoring column in The Mail On Sunday. Martin has subsequently apologised and, understandably, was in no mood to go over the topic again when I spoke to him this week.
During a brief interview with Nairn yesterday, I mentioned that I had spoken to his fellow chef earlier and that he had incurred the wrath of several cycling groups. Nairn, a keen cyclist, was delighted and reckoned that he couldn’t wait to put the cycling shoe in when he guests on the Saturday Kitchen this weekend. How much of it will be broadcast is anyone’s guess but, if we are lucky, then sparks may well fly.