Recently, I've been trying to record more shows from our basic cable package. Being a new inductee to "parenthood", my tastes are getting blander by the minute, leaing me to two kinds of cable shows: shows about trophy wives throwing tons of expendable income and poor taste at a house "flip" project, and shows about cooking.
Food Network has a whole cast of TV cooking personalities, but like any buffet (the only food analogy, I swear), they ain't all created equal. You'd think it's a pretty basic thing to show people a recipe - any idiot with a cook book should fit the bill, right?
Well, on TV, it works a little different. Sometimes, all a TV cook is good for is showing you how rich people eat, while others are good at showing you how to use more exotic ingredients in the stuff you already eat and end up with more dirty dishes when you're done. For the uninitiated, I've taken the liberty of passing sweeping judgements on the major Food Network personalities.
Yes, these images are flagrantly snagged directly from Food Network's site, and my understanding of each "chef" is sometimes brief and limited to as much as I can ascertain from the images I've just grabbed. Excuse me for not knowing what the hell I'm talking about.
Bobby Flay
Bobby Flay is a cocky chef who got recognized from winning Iron Chef tournaments - although don't know what that implies exactly - and now goes toe-to-toe (or you can use some kitchen metaphor here - cause I won't) with cooks on his "Throwdown" show. He seems like a "chef's chef". Don't plan on getting a whole lot of tips on rice krispie squares from him - he's more of a "let's walk into a commercial kitchen and use top-grade kitcheware to craft something people pay top-dollar for" kinda TV chef.
He also seems like the kind of Chef to drop a few hundred F-bombs around sensitive old people. He just does.
Emeril Lagasse
Oh, we don't need to cover his catch phrases. It was cute at first... OK, it was never cute, really. My Dad loves him, my mother-in-law thinks he's stuck up. I'm sure they're both right. The man has a Jazz band and an audience that applauds every time he uses garlic. That's his show in a nutshell. "Today, we're making blah-blah, and to start I'm gonna' use some garlic..." Wild applause.
My Dad also likes garlic.
Giada De Laurentiis
Her name can break a spell checker, but it's her smile that seems to sell. Whatis she smiling about now? Nothing at all - she's Italian, she loves life, and she's Italian. And for thirty minutes, she may cover a few meals, and twenty eight of those minutes she'll be smiling. It's almost hypnotic.
My thing is, she's thin, and I don't trustthin cooks. Something tells me she could sell a show just assembling condiments on Ritz crackers, and her ratings wouldn't adjust.
Mario Batali
This man inspires all kinds of culinary confidence. He's a large, red-headed Italian - a triple threat! You trust large people to know what tastes good, you trust Italians to know fine cuisine, and you trust red-heads because... well, I don't personally trust red-heads, but I'm told most people do.
One thing with Mario - he's mental with the blood oranges. Again, like Bobby Flay, Mario's a "chef", not a cook. Don't expect an ordinary meal using ordinary ingredients. The final product always looks delicious, but it also looks like if it were served to you in a restaraunt, you'd probably have to take a loan out to pay the tab.
Rachael Ray
Rachael, Rachael, Rachael.
Yes, the "girl-next-door" of cooks (about 3 years and $300 million ago). Rachael definitely cooks for the normal person with pots from Goodwill and food that's actually found in a normal supermarket.
She's also incredibly hyped right now. I think part of her appeal comes from being the kind of cute that most guys can feel, maybe with the right amount of alcohol, they have a shot with her.
Yes, she's very likeable, but insanely perky. You know, maybe that's a good thing, but it rubs me the wrong way. It's can be the kind of perky I want to choke after ten minutes.
Seconds. Ten seconds.
Paula Deen
I'm not sure whether to envy or feel sorry for her sons. It could either be nice working with your mom, doing relatively nothing and inheritanting a potential empire someday, or it could be maddening having your Mom, years after you've left your home, once again calling the shots with that sweet, controlling southern voice.
Paula Deen is basically your mom or friend's mom, who cooks good home food, but has never had the grace of modern nutritional information. She could find a way to use a stick of butter in making a cup of coffee. The only thing her recipes are missing is a defibrillator.
The one thing that hits me watching her: if she can make millions cooking chocolate-covered cheese butter in cream sauce, why can't every other Baby Boomer housewife in America?
Alton Brown
Alton's got a show called "Good Eats". Craziest thing about the show: the food is relavent, normal recipes, the untensils and ingredients are largely common in supermarkets, and as he cooks he explains all the actual chemistry and mechanics behind the food preparation and cooking process, which ends up demystifying cooking.
It's a really basic idea, and really good. The recipe is about 4 minutes of the show, the cooking another 10, and the rest of the show is almost a science lesson in how food works. Good stuff if you're just a normal shmoe like me who's trying to get the basics down pat before moving on to stuffed mango capers with Brazillian lime capers in hollanaise sauce (which I entirely made-up - recipe on back).
This is just scratching the surface of TV cooks - which all seem to be white, now that I'm looking at it. Hmm. Not a whole lot of diveristy here, hunh? I think 5 of these 7 are Italian - I'm pretty sure good food comes from places outside "the boot" as well.
Well, when your watching these folks or any other cooks on the telie, just remember: 1) they love extra virgin olive oil, 2) their ovens are all gas, and 3) you never see the dirty dishes after the show. That's because as easy as it is dazzle an audience with an elaborate, exotic dish, it's just as easy to turn them off to it when they see the amount of dishes they'll be cleaning immediately afterward.
Bobby Flay
Emeril Lagasse
Giada De Laurentiis
Mario Batali
Rachael Ray
Paula Deen
Alton Brown