I love my food and enjoy nothing more than having a jolly good nosh on some top quality cuisine in a quality restaurant. This can be anything from a cobwebbed cave of a Taverna serving mama's seafood paella to the swish and shiny atmosphere of a Zen fish restaurant in Mayfair. It's the quality I love, and I constantly set myself the challenge of being able to pull off the impossible feat of being able to cook like a top chef. I spend hours watching celebrity chef programmes on television, soaking up the tips and tricks of those in the know and in trying to emulate their culinary genius, I pretty much fail every time after I crack open the wine.



I know the term 'a poor workman blames his tools' is a bit of a cliche, but it has not escaped my attention that there are a number of celebrity chefs out there promoting their own catering equipment; or endorsing kitchen equipment to make our attempts at cooking a little more palatable. We are more than used to cookbooks and DVDs to compliment a TV series by a top chef, but who is offering what when it comes to the catering equipment, and can it save me from yet another pot noodle dinner?

Jamie Oliver

The infamous Naked Chef is famed not for nudity, but for bringing healthy meals back into schools and for promoting the quality of what is on offer at Sainsbury's. In fact, the last time I was in the supermarket I noticed that the Homewares section was more like a Jamie Oliver department. I think his endorsement of kitchen peripheries is somewhat trite, having a signature on an egg cup doesn't exactly smack of sincerity. I doubt he has designed and contemplated the best egg cup design or even he's the egg cup in question that is now emblazoned with his fair name. He might have looked at a picture of it briefly in a meeting with his PR manager and was assured that the quality was quite good or something. Credit where credit is due though, he did actually come up with an invention of his own, the Flavour Shaker; a kind of pestle and mortar dressing maker. This is a good example of a chef producing catering equipment that has a valid use in the domestic kitchen too; it means I can knock up a salad at least and still make it taste good.

Anthony Worral Thompson

This man is just as famed for his stance on pro smoking as he is for his years on Ready Steady Cook. He is one of the few long standing TV chefs that actually have had a successful restaurant background, unlike the likes of endorsement queen Ms Lawson. Thompson has been involved with the design and production of kitchen equipment based on his experiences in commercial catering and has endorsed many products that aim to improve the chances of creating a meal worthy of a Michelin star. His triple beater hand mixer is an example of a unique product that makes life in the kitchen a little bit easier, and is evidence of involvement and not just endorsement. It is still a fairly specialised kitchen product though, and I'm not sure it will have me running to a kitchen hardware shop when I could just run to a bakery instead.

George Foreman

Ok, so this guy is not a celebrity chef, but many folks out there wouldn't know that. The endorsement of the Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine has to be the biggest kitchen equipment money spinner any celebrity has managed to spin. The former boxer has allegedly made in the region of 240 million dollars from the grill! And to be honest I can see why. It's healthy, it's foolproof and it's affordable. For sofa chefs like me, it is a guaranteed edible dinner without the fuss, saving precious time to get on with the wine drinking, just like any good chef!