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Ah, Ready Steady Cook – you were a product of simpler times. The BBC’s teatime TV cooking show saw two contestants bring along a bag of ingredients, team up with a celebrity chef, (becoming Team Green Pepper and Team Red Tomato) and spend 20 minutes transforming what they’d brought into a tasty dinner.

They only had a maximum budget of £5 (which these days would probably only stretch to half a cucumber and a pot noodle) so the dishes weren’t fancy – none of this nonsense about serving some daft gravy-with-notions and calling it a ‘jus’. No, the likes of Ainsley Harriott or Anthony Worrall Thompson usually just hastily assembled a lasagne, and then the audience voted for a winner – and by ‘vote’, we mean they lifted up a picture of a green pepper or a red tomato.

It was sweet, harmless daytime TV, so when they decided to introduce a celebrity version,...

A highly-successful blog by a 9-year-old schoolgirl has been banned by a local council. Martha Payne's blog NeverSeconds charts her school dinners each week, and has reached over 2 million hits worldwide and raised thousands of pounds for charity. She had received praise for her campaign for a more healthy food choice at schools, with Jamie Oliver describing her as a "clever girl". However, despite support from her school itself, the Argyll and Bute Council have decided to ban the seven-week-old blog due to negative publicity. Celebrity chef Nick Nairn slammed the "incredibly short-sighted" decision, while it has been met with uproar among the blog's fans online, and has become a trending topic on Twitter this morning (June 15). Payne wrote on her latest post, named 'Goodbye': "This morning in maths I got taken out of class (more)...

Chef Gordon Ramsay is doing his part to help fundraising for the Boundary Oak School near Portsmouth in the south of England. The chef has contributed a recipe to the school cook book to help raise money for the school.

He even took his contribution to a new level by recruiting other celebrity chefs such as Gary Rhodes, Nigella Lawson, Nick Nairn and Phil Vickery to submit recipes.

The registrar at the school was pleased with the outcome saying, "It's been an incredibly successful project. A parent and member of the parent's association, Sarah Ironside, came up with the recipe book idea. It was thought a cookbook was a nice way of raising some money and something the children could really get involved with."

"It was then decided to contact some celebrity chefs. No one really expected to hear from them, but we were shocked when they started replying and saying yes.

Aldo Zilli and Maria Elia have joined the team of chefs for the new series of Ready Steady Cook. The established duo will appear with host Ainsley Harriott and regulars James Tanner, Gino D'Acampo, Paul Rankin, Phil Vickery, Nick Nairn and Lesley Waters. "It's great to be part of the Ready Steady team and I felt honoured to be asked," said Elia. "The night before the first show I felt sick with nerves but I soon began to relax and actually started to enjoy myself! I always find if you're relaxed and happy your food (more)...