Not a single aspect the genious coven has not mentioned so far but...from my humble perspective:
The food is awful. Not bc I want to be a bully but bc I simply know how to cook better food and I am not a chef or even a great great hobby cook. I can feed myself and I feed others. They love my food, not bc it is maverick but it is solid international home-cooked food. The texture is good, my hands are clean and I present it well. Again, nothing FANCY but it looks appetising.
Question: what is wrong with eg. sunflower oil? I never use lard. That way a vegan or vegetarian guest can automatically eat all the veg and I don't have to do several parallel dishes.
Soooo much opportunity wasted on that prawn cocktail!! The reason why one would have a prawn cocktail bc it is supposed to be uplifting, not only by taste but by presentation. If the sauce is not pink, there is no point having it. The pink is what sells it. Even tinned Mel Donte could have been incorporated, maybe with a skewer and some fruit lined up to introduce more colour, then put horizontally on or vertically inside the glass. A child could have drawn a flamingo to put on a skewer...just a few simple ideas to make it fun.
The food she cooks is sad, trying to be maverick but making it tasteless and not appetising. I agree on the peels bit. If that's what you want to do, yes, but as a suggestion for the poor to eat their peels on Christmas, I find this an insult.
As somebody who did not grew up poor but later in life had many many poor spells (not only a few months!) , this makes me want to cry.
If JMs food proves something to someone it is maybe that you CAN'T feed people on so little money. And poor people, I risk to suggest (not a homogenous group, I know) have either worked out how to cook something tasty ish their way due to experience or on Christmas they buy something nice, such as ice cream.
Her food does not help anyone, if only then it is to eradicate the bad conscience of people who are better off. But according to my experience, they don't have a bad conscience. The ones who care help in ways they can (in my circle of friends so many help and volunteer) but I doubt that the Express article will have anything to offer to anyone. Also because she lacks the basics of cooking.
And no, you can't put a raw white sauce into lasagne. And if you are poor and likely to feel miserable you don't knock up a proper white sauce. Also in some parts of Italy they don't see the necessity at all to add white sauce to a lasagne but that is a different issue.
I also 'wonder' why JM is able to so clearly communicate in the Express that she is not poor anymore when on Twitter it was a rather difficult web of ambiguity.
I also know that she does not owe anyone a covid test result (her general oversharing makes me cringe) but when there is a follow up and genuine concern by squiggles she goes all vague. I find that highly manipulative. And this is the reason why I, as an intelligent, educated and not remotely naive person, wanted to donate money to her in the midst of my own poverty when I felt that she must be even worse off according to her portrayal. I will not forgive. Never. I am just glad that I did not give her any money.
But of course, we are all supposed to be bullies. Her constant state of dirty fingernails alone is something that disqualifies her. She is feeling bullied? She does not know how things are in the normal world of work. No person would survive there sitting with these nails using even their own computer without colleagues commenting. Try using a colleague's favourite mug, you go straight into hell.. Everyone offering chocolate and doing the tea run but you never do it yourself? Well...
And if you are a public person, people do talk about you and criticise you. And that is OK, because you have chosen that path and you get much more money for doing jobs compared to people doing normal jobs.
Sorry for the essay.
emoji for the love of slop
