Merrilees Parker

Merrilees Parker

Born	11 August 1971 (1971-08-11) (age 40)
Cooking style	no-nonsense
Current restaurant(s) The Lansdowne (past) The Greyhound (past) Pink (present, catering)
Television show(s) Anything You Can Cook (1999) Full on Food (2005) Planet Food (2006) Food Uncut (2006) …Cooks! (2007)

Merrilees Parker (born 11 August 1971) is a British celebrity chef and TV presenter. She is mainly known for presenting television programmes combining food and travel (Planet Food and Full on Food) as well as various more traditional cookery programmes. Parker is also renowned for the menu she presented working for the pub The Lansdowne in Primrose Hill in London.

Parker's distinguishing characteristics are her no-nonsense cooking style and her passionate method of presenting. Many of her recipes are freely available online.

Parker admits to wearing fur, but only if this fur is ethically sourced. This was revealed in the Channel 4 show Kill It, Skin It, Wear It.

Early life

Parker was already passionate about cooking as a young girl, at which time her grandmother assisted her in the kitchen. Her mother is half-Portuguese and her sister, Hannah Foster. She lives in the United Kingdom and speaks French fluently. She was married previously but the marriage has since ended, as mentioned on Channel 4's programme Kill it, Skin it Wear it.

Career

Parker has developed several career paths in parallel, mainly involving cooking.

Career as TV presenter

Parker started her career in TV in 1996 as a researcher on the BBC cookery programme Ready Steady Cook. She also researched for Channel 4.

She began presenting in 1997 on a TV programme called Barbecue Bible, in which she was credited as the Home Economist. Parker became a familiar face as a TV chef in 1999 on a long running BBC series Anything You Can Cook, which she presented together with Brian Turner.

In 2001 Merrilees was the regular chef on the BBC day-time show House Call.

In 2005 Parker presented the BBC programme Full on Food, together with Heston Blumenthal and Richard Corrigan. For this programme she travelled to various cultures to sample their traditional cooking. Amongst the most memorable and inspiring locations she visited for the programme Merrilees mentions Hanoi (in Vietnam) and Peru.

For the programme Planet Food she made several more travel and cookery documentaries. As one of the presenters for these 50 minute programmes, Merrilees travelled one country or region per episode, met with interesting local chefs and tasted local (food) culture. Amongst the locations visited by Parker are Japan, Malaysia, Caribbean, Germany and Scandinavia. Planet Food was made by Pilot Guides and broadcast around 2006 by several TV stations worldwide including Travel Channel and Food Network (USA).

Parker also co-presented Orgasmic Organic^[1] and Great Food Live. For Sky she appeared on Taste and for the BBC she has appeared on Saturday Kitchen.

For UKTV Food Parker co-presented Food Uncut in 2006 with Stefan Gates and Jean-Christophe Novelli. For ITV, she appeared as a guest chef on Daily Cooks and Saturday Cooks in 2007, and in 2008 appeared regularly as a contestant on Daily Cooks Challenge.

In 2007, Parker was a judge on ITV1 cooking show Soapstar Superchef.

On Sun 10 Aug 2008 on Channel 4 - Merrilees presented a documentary called 'Kill it Skin it Wear it'. The publicity for the show stated: "Chef Merrilees Parker admits to liking fur, but can she kill it, skin it and still wear it? She wants to find out if it's possible to source ethical fur as we source ethical food." She's quite comfortable with fur after visiting a fur farm and a trapping line but when she's shown images of cruelty, she comes to pieces. She is shown images of abused animals on a farm in the United States but according to Fur Commission, an organisation for mink-farmers in the US, is not told that it was a scent farm, that the animals were so poorly cared for that any fur the owner attempted to sell never sold and that he was prosecuted for cruelty. She is shown video of animals being skinned alive, something that Fur Commission states makes no sense at all since it would ruin the fur, never mind the ethical and legal implications of engaging in such cruelty. http://www.furcommission.com/news/newsC7.htm

Career as a chef

At the age of 17, Parker worked as a chalet girl in France, where she impressed the chef. Upon returning to the UK, Merrilees worked for The Eagle, which was the first gastropub in London. Later she opened her own gastropub.

Parker has been the chef at the The Lansdowne in Primrose Hill in London. Here she developed her personal cooking style and received good reviews. Parker was head chef at The Greyhound in Sonning Common.

While working for Wiz Events, Antony Worrall Thompson's company, Parker provided consultancy for his restaurants and catered for several events and cookery demonstrations. She now runs her own catering company called Pink, together with Bernadette Fitzpatrick, also of the Antony Worrall Thompson stable.

Magazines

Parker has been contributing to the print magazine BBC Good Food since 2002 and also contributes to Olive.

Style

Presenting style

Parker's presenting style is passionate, open and positive. In her travel documentaries she tastes local foods even if they may sometimes look unappealing to western eyes. She does not believe eating from street restaurants is risky: if something is cooked in front of you in a hot wok it's less likely to give you food poisoning than something that has been sitting on a lukewarm buffet.^[2]

While cooking on TV, she focusses on how people at home can easily follow that recipe, as well as on the benefits of good and organic ingredients.

Cooking style

Parker's cooking style has been described as no-nonsense. She also emphasises the need to adapt to the target audience, mentioning that for a children's birthday party she creates food that is visually interesting and fun to eat, rather than being geared towards adult palates. Her company Pink promotes as one of its distinguishing features its range, going from posh clubs via corporate events to children's parties.^[3]

Charity

In 2007, Parker joined the Westminster Arctic Challenge.^[4] This charity event raised awareness and money^[5] for several causes. The participants were besides celebrity chef Parker, several UK MPs as well as representatives of the charities and a journalist. The participants went on a challenging sponsored trek to the Arctic, on husky-powered sledges.

References

1. ^ "Video's of Merrilees Parker presenting Orgasmic Organic". http://www.lime.com/tag/orgasmic_organic. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
2. ^ "Interview about Full on Food". http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_radio/saturdaykitchen_merrileesparker.shtml. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
3. ^ "Pink company website". http://www.pinkfood.co.uk/. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
4. ^ "Westminster Challenge". http://www.westminsterchallenge.org/. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
5. ^ "Merrilees Parker sponsor page for Westminster Challenge". http://www.justgiving.com/merrilees. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 

• "Interview about Full on Food". http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/tv_and_radio/saturdaykitchen_merrileesparker.shtml. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
• "Biography at Planet Food site". http://www.planetfoodtv.com/. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
• "Biography at Westminster Challenge site". http://www.westminsterchallenge.org/The_Team/121/merrilees-parker. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
• "Biography at UKTV Food site". http://uktv.co.uk/food/item/aid/530808/recipeOffset/41. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 
• "Biography at BBC Good Food magazine site". http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/knowhow/ourexperts/merrileesparker/. Retrieved 2007-07-28. 

External links

• Merrilees Parker at the Internet Movie Database
• Recipes by Merrilees Parker on UKTV Food
• Recipes by Merrilees Parker on BBC site
• Recipes by Merrilees Parker on BBC Good Food magazine site

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Name	Parker, Merrilees
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Date of birth	11 August 1971
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