My issue with Delia is that her approach is cooking-by-numbers, with no attempt to get you thinking for yourself.
As long as you're cooking for the right number of people, using the correct baking tin or whatever, it'll all work. It's when you have an extra person, large eggs instead of medium and every sort of sugar except the one you need that the wheels fall off.
She gets on my tits a bit, especially because any silly fads she has instantly get reproduced on shelves and menus, and in kitchens, all over the country. There was a period when you couldn't have lemon anything because she'd opined that "limes are much nicer". And people even started putting risotto in the oven! FFS! Having said that, she's an affable enough sort, and seems genuinely bothered about enabling people to reproduce what she cooks. Which is the opposite of Rhodes, whose whole demeanour exudes "your pastry won't look anything like this, peasants, so don't even bother trying". And instead of saying "bung in loads of salt and pepper," he says stuff like "you know how I feel about seasoning." ****. And I have it on very good authority that he really is as much of a **** as he looks.
Alastair Little is the best thing ever, but he's rarely on the telly. Another vote for Floyd (even when he's cooking utter shite, as in Floyd on Africa), and for Madhur Jaffrey and the lovely Claudia Roden. Jamie Oliver may be annoying, but his food is nice, and I warm to him every time he attempts some wildly ambitious campaign. People may mock the mockney, but he can win over the most unlikely targets.
