Its not often that you get to see a whole load of top chefs appearing live on stage all in one day. Sure they make their appearances at foodie festivals etc. but this was a whole day dedicated to chefs shuffling on and off the stage to both entertain and cook for us. This inaugural Love Cooking Festival was held at Royal Festival Hall. There as plenty of auditorium space … but it was rather random which tickets you would get. Its apparently first come best dressed … and we ended up with front row seats though off to the side. This was quite good as we were right up there with no one the block our view … but it was sometimes awkward as the camera man would often get in our way! Still, that didn’t stop us enjoying our day.

After each cooking session the chefs were then available to sign their books. Laney and I got into a rhythm of running outside as soon as the session was finished to line up for the autographs. There was an hour in between screenings but this wasn’t nearly enough time for the chefs to get through the queue! It was quite hard work today – literally from 12 until 9.30, except for a small break for dinner, we were running to and fro. Very funny. It would have been a longer day but unfortunately Gary Rhodes, who was scheduled for the first session, couldn’t make it 🙁

First up on the bill was Richard Corrigan and Mark Hix (for the cooking) & Oz Clarke (for the drinking)

Gino D’Acampo, known as Hot Stuff, was the next session. What a beautiful man in both looks and personality … shame he is already married! Gino got out the pasta making machine and went back to basics just to show us how easy it was to make pasta. He also bunged some tuna on to the grill … for which he got the help of a lucky lady from the audience. Strangely rather than being excited to be both on stage and being up close to Gino the girl was oddly unaffected and barely even cracked a smile!

We make a nice couple huh? Heh heh.

Ainsley Harriott was up next. Ainsley is just a totally adorable man. The cynic would expect that such a big personality who comes across as bubbly and friendly on television might not really live up to this perception. We were really pleased to see that Ainsley is a genuinely lovely man.

Ainsley cooked up some soul food for us and Laney was lucky enough to get to go up on stage to sample. She looked after us though by bringing down some snacks for us tool. Good looking out Laney!

Rick Stein then took us into the dinner break. What I love about Rick is that he is just so very down to earth. Its really all about the cooking for him. There is no pretention and no pretending he’s this big superstar with an attitude. I really like that about him. He had us giggling about the first time he went on tv and cut his finger. The fact the video man kept flashing up the scene of the cut finger behind Rick at random intervals (so that we would all be laughing and then Rick would turn around to see what was going on but of course the scene was gone from the screen) had us laughing even more.

The laughs of the night had to go to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who hosted the last session. Hugh is best known for his “grow your own” philosophy and his commitment to eating seasonally, locally and ethically. He was another really down to earth chef. I don’t think he was drunk tonight but he was moving around the stage like a mad man – but in a really endearing fashion. He very self-deprecating and this really was quite charming. I don’t really remember much of the cooking but I remember it being a really good way to end the day. There was the cutting of the pumpkin moment …