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Finally, we have a winner for the Apprentice role - and she works in hospitality.

Restaurateur Yasmina Siadatan, owner of Mya Lacarte restaurant in Caversham, Reading, beat favourite Kate Walsh for the top job.

She strikes a blow for catering - despite the derogatory comments about the profession last week and the quality of her winning product.

In a final which asked the two contestants to produce a box of chocolates - because real life is like that - Yasmina triumphed with her cheaper, more mass market version.

Kate's were, everyone concurred, delicious and in fact, during filming for the promotion of Yasmina's chocolate brand, one of the models spat out a chocolate after a shoot.

It brings to mind one of the earliest tasks, when she was in charge of a contract catering task in which her food was likewise of very poor quality.

Strange for someone who runs a restaurant.

Sir Alan's other concern with Yasmina was that she'd find it hard moving from being self-employed to working for someone else - "two years in from running my own business I was set up for life," he said.

"Also will I be putting 20 people out of work?"

But Yasmina said that her brother was now taking over the running of the restaurant, and reiterated that she definitely wanted to work for him.

And, thanks to Sir Alan going on his "gut instinct", she will be now.

He's just completed his first installment of Big Chef programmes, but senor Blumenthal was back on our screens last night for more with his new series looking at chowing down throughout the ages.

Blumenthal is targeting those epochs when large meals went hand in hand with culinary invention. And to kick off he turned to the Victorians.

"It was extraordinary", said The Guardian's TV critic Sam Leith of 'Heston's Victorian Feast'. "Heston lacks telly charisma...lines were delivered with the uncertain enthusiasm of a born lab-tech - but what he does with grub is gripping."

The three-star chef served wacky food to Radio 5 presenter Richard Bacon, former Scud star Rageh Omaar, Dawn Porter, Kathy Lette, Jemma Redgrave and Toby Young.

And what dishes: cow's head soup reduced to a stock cube wrapped in gold foil shaped as a watch, which was then dissolved in water. There was also an Alice in Wonderland-inspired layered liquid infusion with toffee, hot-buttered toast, custard, cherry tart and turkey flavours. And he finished with a six-foot edible garden, complete with olive soil and potato rocks.

According to Serena Davies, TV critic for The Telegraph, "it's great. If food can seem this amazing even when you can't taste it, heaven knows how divine the experience of actually eating it must be".

However, Times television critic Andrew Billen thought the whole thing "utterly pointless". Heston now "flaps around wondering where on television his future lies", he added.

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Last night's instalment of the Jamie Oliver on Channel 4 showed the pig ejaculation as previously trailed in this blog space for the 'Save Our Bacon' programme.

But it was also a chance for Jamie to put forward a challenging proposition to the British public: spend more on pork products even though you more than likely have less money at the moment.

Porker shoot-off aside, it showed the reality of the pig meat trade, the sow stalls in particular. A kind of equivalent of chicken battery farmed conditions; they were banned in the UK in 1999. In the EU, however, they'll be legal until 2013, which could make our industry sadly unable to compete in future - it's in the balance rather.

The programme featured Caroline Mortimer, who, as Caterersearch exclusively revealed last year, is the new head of catering at the Met Police. She vowed to use only British Pork on canteen menus as soon as was logistically possible. 

Jamie took on Hugh's F-W's animal welfare mantle with aplomb in this latest edition of Channel 4's 'Great British Food Fight', and has hopefully convinced a fair number to switch to more humanely reared, British pork.

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A new kind of memorabilia has been created to surround the furore of Saturday night's X Factor grand finale on ITV - pizzas branded with the judges' faces.

Neopolitan pizza chain Rossopomodoro has created four pizzas costing £9 each that are embellished with the grinning faces of Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Danni Minogue and Cheryl Cole.

Rossopomodoro's managing director Simone Falco says: "I absolutely love the X Factor, so my tribute to the programme was to task the team at Rossopomodoro to make the pizzas - I think the resemblance to the judges is uncanny!"

Since the finalists were announced on Saturday, Simone has been selling pizzas named after the three X Factor finalists:

Eoghan Quigg - Corbarella
Mozzarella, mushrooms, ham, cream and fresh basil
A green, white and gold pizza of stunning simplicity

Alexandra Burke - Massese
Tomato, mozzarella, spicy salami and fresh basil
The spiciest pizza on the menu, full of guts and fire

JLS - Teanese
Four traditional Neapolitan cheeses; provola, caciocavallo, mozzarella and Bagnoli Pecorino

No doubt fans are chomping right into the cheesy treats in eager anticipation of Saturday's showdown. Personally, I'm amazed the team at Rossopomodoro managed to find a pizza base large enough to contain Simon Cowell's head...

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