OK, now, ladies and gentlemen, what is more important
on Christmas Day itself than lunch?
Personally, huge fan.
Who loves a Christmas lunch, by way of applause?
Who could not?
But of course, it needs to be prepared,
so can I ask, by way of applause, who cooks Christmas lunch?
Anyone in this room who handles the cooking?
Cooking?
All right.
I'm going to come down, if you don't mind,
and have a little chat with the Christmas cooks.
We've got one over here.
Hello, darling, nice to meet you.
What's your name? Maria.
Hi, Maria. So you cook at Christmas?
I do. Tell me how it goes.
When do you start it? Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve?
Turkey goes in overnight.
I give it a good burst of 200 for an hour,
and then take it right down to 50 overnight.
Take it down overnight!
I'm going to take it down to 50!
Well, good luck this Christmas, good luck.
Home cooks, anybody else cook?
Cooks?
You cook for the family?
The whole family, yes.
The whole family. How many people come round Christmas?
Two, four, six, eight. Eight.
Two, four, six, eight? Yes! Who do we appreciate?
Me! You, the home cook!
Yay! So you cook a lot at home?
Yes, all the time, I love it.
Freezing, do any freezing, home freezing?
Yes, but I prefer to do cooking straight away
and serve it straight away.
Yes. How many freezers have you got at home?
Two.
Two. Well, there you go, there's your answer!
And where is your home?
York. York, right.
Is it THIS home?
LAUGHTER
Is that your home...
..Margaret?
How do YOU know?
Margaret, can I ask you to stand up, is that all right?
CHEERING
Margaret!
I know about your home, Margaret, and I know about your two freezers,
because I've actually...
I've been in your home, Margaret.
Yes, you've looked at your husband, David, there.
Hi, David, how are you?
Nice to see you. So, David of course, gave...
David gave me the keys to the front door,
and I've been in your home, Margaret. You haven't!
Well...
Take a look at this.
MUSIC: Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice
LAUGHTER
Here we are, Margaret.
It's your beautiful home in York!
OK, so, this is your hallway, your lovely, beautiful family,
so let's go into your kitchen.
Oh, it's a lovely-sized kitchen.
Nice French table over there in the conservatory.
Where are we eating? Are we eating posh
or are we eating in the kitchen? Who knows?
Let's head on through to this room over here.
Into the freezer we go.
I am so excited about what you do, Margaret. You are just a brilliant
home cook, and you've got everything covered.
You've got this freezer full of amazing frozen dishes
that you've prepared, and another freezer over here
full of food!
Gravy.
They've all got dates on it.
This is your beef...
Beef cheeks.
And we're going to put it...
Have you been taking my food?
LAUGHTER
Chicken curry, mild.
Fish pie with the date on it. Thank you very much, Margaret!
And now I've got a long way to get back to London.
Thank you, Margaret. You're obviously a little bit
confused now in the theatre, wondering what on earth
I'm going to do with all this food. Well, let's find out.
Bye, Margaret!
# Ice ice baby... #
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Margaret, Margaret, I took all your food.
What were you saying to me?
You couldn't believe it. I've stolen your food,
haven't I, Margaret? That's terrible!
It IS terrible, but why have I done that?
I'm wondering whether you've recently been out for any special
meals with David.
Yes. You have?
Where did you go?
I went to Michael Roux's restaurant, Le Gavroche.
Michel Roux Jr? Michel Roux Jr. His two-star, Michelin star, restaurant,
Le Gavroche. Le Gavroche.
What you don't know, Margaret, is Michel was with his friend,
me, that night. Really?
Not only that, Margaret -
do you know what we did with your food?
We reheated it and we served it back to you.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
You cheeky...!
Let's take a look at what happened.
FRENCH ACCORDION MUSIC PLAYS
OK. Bonjour. Bonjour, chef. Ca va?
So, this is Michel Roux Jr,
one of the world's greatest chefs.
I am Michel McIntyre senior.
Have you heard of the home cook Margaret Brown?
Nope.
Well, I've been to her house in York, and have stolen a few
dishes from her freezer.
So, this is a mild chicken korma.
Oh, this is important - beef cheeks.
It looks really soft and tender. Just needs a bit more sauce.
Yeah, well, this is key to this, Michel.
We're not going to add anything.
We're serving all her food back to her.
The only thing we're focusing on is presentation.
So I can pimp them up a bit?
Oh, completely, you've got to give her the full Roux.
The fish pie, fish pie, Michel.
Fish pie all over my shoes.
Sorry, Chef! Sorry, Chef.
So, now it's time for Michel Roux Jr
to heat up all of Margaret's defrosted food,
and serve it straight back to her in his
two-Michelin-starred restaurant.
# Hey-hey, good-lookin'
# What you got cooking?
# How's about cooking something up with me... #
OK, they're here!
May I take the name you booked under, please? Brown.
Brown. There you are.
We're off, we're off, we're off, it's happening.
And, sir. Thank you very much.
Just so you know, tonight you're going to be trying
a taster menu for Le Gavroche.
So if you could let us know your honest feedback at the end
of every course, we'd love to get your real opinions
on how the food tastes.
Enjoy your meal.
This is our menu. This is made entirely from Margaret's food.
Up first, we have vegetable soup, which was found in her freezer,
and this is now Cappuccino de Legume.
So, we're going to froth it up, make it lovely and light and fluffy
and serve it in a beautiful demitasse, something that looks
very fancy and upmarket. Fantastic.
Just a little... Oh, yes.
Aw! Magnifique.
So, Margaret's frozen vegetable soup has been heated up and given a posh
French name, Cappuccino de Legume.
Thank you. Monsieur, bon appetit. Thank you.
Then we move on to the Parmentier de Poissons, Bisque de Crevettes,
which means fish pie. Basically, fish pie to you and me.
So, that's her fish pie and you've taken off the potatoes,
and you've squirted it back on the top.
Piped it back on, but it's all her mash,
all her filling, everything. Amazing.
THEY LAUGH
Service. On y va.
So, Margaret's frozen fish pie has been heated up and renamed...
Hmm...
Sensual. What did you do to that fish pie?
I told you not to add anything.
Not me, bruv.
She's leaving her own peas!
She shouldn't have put them in if she didn't like the peas.
I don't know, Margaret, why you put peas in it
if you don't want the peas.
Who would do that?
Now, I'm really excited about the next course
because we've had two very average reviews so far.
The beef. I would sit down and eat it no problem at all.
I think it's lovely.
That's looking very good.
I'm very impressed with these shallots.
They've been beautifully cooked.
Beautifully cooked, Margaret.
That's coming from Michel Roux.
There we go.
You have Michelined Margaret.
So, Margaret's frozen beef cheeks
with carrots is now presented as...
This is for you. Thank you.
We don't know what this is exactly.
It's pretty nondescript, but kind of chicken flavour.
I think we should serve it with, actually, the korma.
I'll reduce this down and...
And you're going to call it...?
Le Jus du Congel.
Which is roughly translated as?
The juice from the freezer.
LAUGHTER
Food sounds so much better in French.
Le Jus du Congel.
I think she's going to love it. A nice bit of sauce.
Margaret's frozen chicken korma is now...
Le Jus du Congel.
LAUGHTER
Thank you.
LAUGHTER
So, we found this chutney in her freezer and we've just...
Mashed it up.
And you've decided to pop it on your favourite thing.
I think it's a great sponge.
This will come with a coffee, but we don't know if it works
together cos you've not tried it, but you're confident.
Yes. All right, well, Margaret, it's your chutney and
it's your sponge.
You didn't intend them to go together, but Michel Roux
has decided it will work, and, well, you be the judge.
Service.
So, Margaret's frozen sponge and chutney
have been united to make...
Is that all right?
That's lovely. Thank you.
Mm.
Oh, there he is! Good evening!
Good to see you. Good evening.
You've got a big smile on your face.
That's normally a good sign. Good.
Enjoyed it all?
Any kind of negative, positives that I should know about?
Cos I want honest feedback.
It didn't do it for you?
You didn't like it?
Tasted bland?
The soup?
Do you think yours at home is better?
Pleasure. Great to have you here.
It's good to be here. Thank you.
So, Margaret, that was amazing.
Thank you, Michel. Sensational.
It has been fun. One day, Margaret,
you'll get to try Michel's ACTUAL cooking.
All right, come on, let's go.
Not so fast. What?
Washing-up to do. Oh, for goodness' sake!
CHEERING
Oh, Margaret.
Margaret, ladies and gentlemen!
That must absolutely blow your mind.
You had no idea, Margaret.
Did you really come and steal my food?
Yes, Margaret, you saw me in your house.
I came up to York, David let me in, I had a lovely cup of tea,
I actually had some cake in your fridge.
David, by the way, deserves a round of applause,
ladies and gentlemen. CHEERING
David was absolutely amazing.
David!
It's been really hard to keep the secret. Really, it has.
Because what David had to do, of course, Margaret,
is he had to get you talking about your food,
to review it, and at one point, you might remember,
you had a row about the peas.
David kept saying, "Why don't you like the peas?
"Why don't you like the peas?"
And you went, "Will you just shut up about the peas?!"
So why did you put peas in your fish pie if you don't want peas
in the fish pie?
Well, it's to tempt the grandchildren to eat vegetables.
Oh, you're the sweetest, loveliest person, Margaret.
So I don't think you can quite come to terms yet that this actually
happened, so why don't we welcome into the theatre,
Michel. No! Michel Roux, ladies and gentlemen.
CHEERING
Well, I've got to taste YOUR food, then! Well, that's...
Funny you should say that. Funny you should say that.
We have a lovely prize for you, Margaret. Michel...
On behalf of the Big Show, we would love to have you back,
but this time, I promise I'll be cooking my food.
That's just for you.
CHEERING
Margaret, we've also got you this book.
It is From Freezer To Fabulous.
It's a cookbook.
It's what I stole from your freezer, and you've got some quotes
here about your own vegetable soup - "6 out of 10, lacked flavour,
"but enjoyable."
Maybe you can put that on top of the freezer
when David wants to make himself a meal.
Margaret, you've been the loveliest, sweetest lady.
I've been dying to meet you.
Big hand for David, her husband, for helping us set the whole thing up.
The extraordinary Michel Roux.
CHEERING
And my favourite home-cook in the world, it's Margaret!