Recently in BBC Category

It seems that Heston Blumenthal, everyone's favourite three Michelin-starred chef/scientist, isn't off our television screens at the moment.

After an appearance on BBC2's irreverant music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks earlier this month which left Heston shuffling nervously in his seat, our Heston turned up on Sky Sports' Saturday morning show Soccer AM over the weekend.

Heston - a huge fan of nouveau riche Islington side Arsenal - turned up on Saturday and proved he's perhaps better off in the kitchen when he missed the target in Soccer AM's 'Road to Rome' segment (but then, to be fair, so did everyone else).

Kitchen Rat got to thinking about what other TV shows Heston could make guest appearances on.

A stint on Location, Location, Location perhaps? "I'm looking for another large house in Bray, with a massive kitchen and fireproof walls"...

How about Cash in the Attic? I have found this old bunsen burner - how much could I flog it for on eBay?"...

Perhaps we could come up with a new format- Challenge Heston - where contestants have to come up with even more palate-challenging food concepts than bacon and egg ice-cream. Or How to Cook Good Naked, with regular guests Gok Wan and Jamie Oliver. 

Kitchen Rat considered a concept that would see Heston being filmed as he attempted to save Little Chef but decided it was too far fetched...

The BBC these days probably conjures up the image of a giant bureaucratic entity smothered in health & safety rules. Despite this, its catering policy used to be somewhat more "relaxed".

Although the BBC had an onsite caterer for staff - currently Aramark and before this Compass - there was and has always been a need to cater for outside events such as programme launches.

However, a former manager tells us that it was more Only Fools and Horses than The Restaurant when they joined in the not too distant past.

Seems it was standard practice to recommend your mates for catering gigs, or at least a local restaurant that you'd once peered through the door into, to feed dignitaries and the various other VIPS in attendance.

So casual was this arrangement that our source informs us that two of the restaurants used by one section of the Beeb for event catering had actually appeared in a BBC TV programme. Alas, this was a show exposing filthy eateries.

In another particulary risky case, food was apparently prepared in a domestic kitchen before being driven across London in a car and delivered to a party attended by a South-east Asia ambassador.

Unsurprisingly this risky business was nipped in the bud and an assessment procedure established to draw up a list of approved caterers, which in this case sounds like commonsense rather than bureaucratic nonsense.

Aramark takes £15m-a-year BBC deal off Compass>>

Blanc's The Restaurant winners quit after seven months>>

Contract catering round-up>>

Where would we be without the BBC? Well a few years ago a lot better off as licence-fee payers.

Kitchen Rat hears from a former manager that when he took on his role around the start of the decade staff at the Beeb were spending an eye watering £300,000 a year on biscuits at meetings through their corporate hospitality budget.

Although new rules on Hob-Nobbing were introduced to address this, no doubt much to the disappointment of then caterer Eurest, veteran broadcaster John Humphrys hit the nail on the head for most large organisations when he retorted "it's not the biscuits we should ban but the meetings".

Blanc's The Restaurant winners quit after seven months>>

Hotel operator sought for former BBC Scotland site>>

Aramark takes £15m a year deal off Compass>>