SOMETHING For The Weekend chef Simon Rimmer reckons he’s like Chinese water torture.

“It’s drip, drip, drip...”

he says. Not for him an all-out gimmicky assault on viewers by trying to change school meals or make ice cream from sausage and mash.

He’s just there week in week out, slowly working his way into the viewer’s memory. He tells me it’s day 52 since he had a day off.

With two restaurants – where you’ll find him at least four days a week – and Sunday morning BBC2 cooking show Something For The Weekend running all year round for five years, he’s not stuck for work.

If he’s not on telly, he’s out meeting and cooking for the public – like tomorrow’s cookery demonstrations at Darlington’s Cornmill shopping centre, where he’ll be offering tips for cooking a Mother’s Day treat at demonstrations throughout the day.

He’ll be preparing salmon on a potato pancake, lamb rump with beans, steak tartare, halibut wrapped in bread on a cauliflower puree, banana tarte tartin and raspberry and custard cake. Recipe cards will be given out so the public can prepare the dishes at home. Food for the event is being provided by Tesco.

This is one of a series of public demonstrations Rimmer will be doing in the coming months.

They allow him show off his skill as a chef as well as using local produce wherever possible. He hopes it improves people’s passion for cooking.

He’s been part of Something For The Weekend for nearly five years. Commissioned for only ten weeks originally, the show is still going strong, with its mix of cooking and chat with guests.

That’s four recipes a week, which is a lot and he admits: “There are moments you think, ‘What am I going to cook next week?’ “But obviously there are certain things you’re going to revive and revisit and tweak.”

And the reason for its success? “My incredible talent and charm,” he replies tongue-in-cheek.

“I think it just works for a Sunday morning. We’re relatively laid back, we don’t take ourselves too seriously and don’t cook anything that’s not achievable by an amateur cook. Hopefully, it feels we’re part of their world.”

Rimmer became a chef more by accident than design. Both his parents cooked so he was always surrounded by people who cooked. As a student, he worked in restaurants although more front-ofhouse than in the kitchen. And he cooked himself, including one dish (chicken breast in white wine, cream and tarragon) prepared to impress girls.

He first opened a vegetarian restaurant in Manchester, although he’s not a vegetarian, in 1990. He did the cooking because he couldn’t afford to employ anyone else to do it. As the restaurant won awards, he began working in TV.

He’s written books, presented programmes and opened a second restaurant, Earle, in Cheshire. The constant has been Something For The Weekend, currently commissioned until next March with only two weeks off-screen.

“The vast majority of cooking on TV is entertainment, not about being the best chef in the world,” he says.

As for the rise of celebrity chefs in recent years, he feels that satisfies “an appetite to show the human side of chefs rather than the grumpy old b*****ds which is what we are”.

As for not having any time off, Rimmer puts the hours in but the important thing is he still wants to be a chef. “While physically it gets harder, that has to do with my age. I still love it. I like the variety. Every week is completely different.”

􀁧 Simon Rimmer’s cookery demonstrations will take place in the Cornmill’s lower atrium at selected times between 10am and 4pm tomorrow.