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Archive for the ‘Cooking on TV’ Category

Quick note! Based on my writing articles on television shows including now reviewing tv shows such as this cooking show roundup here I’ve decided to do a second new blog!

While you’ll still find new recipes with photos as well as articles on cooking right here at cooking @ home, you can find new television show reviews as well as the latest news on your favorite cooking show host, tv cook, and celebrity chef. We’re covering their shows, their cookbooks, their travels, their new restaurants and even any cookware or spice or sauce they come out with. So whether it’s Gordon Ramsay or Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri or Wolfgang Puck, you’ll find all your favorite celeb chefs at the brand new TV Chefs Blog.

Today I look at the latest new food and cooking shows of this winter season. Give a nod to some of the best shows that have been on a while, and look forward to the first signs of Spring. Seems Punxsutawney Phil came out of his burrow, saw his shadow made by a creme brulee torch, and predicted two of our top favorite shows will be returning in just a few weeks.

Oh and with this article, I start the first ever reviews complete a star rating system. That said, let’s begin with the latest crop of new programs. Are they feast or famine?

The New Winter Shows

Ultimate Recipe Showdown (The Food Network)

Hmm. This show I’m ambivalent about. First and foremost … I love food competition shows. Iron Chef America is a never miss. The various “Challenge” specials (Ok, I’m personally not as interested in those candy design things. First because I’m sure as heck never going to make one. Second, I hate to watch someone make something for 12 hours and then it falls over and shatter in a million pieces). That said, both the chef ones and the “regular people” food challenges are quite enjoyable. And yes, the Bobby Flay Throwdowns, I enjoy those as much. And so yes, definitely when the home cook gets to compete, I love it. It evens the playing field, that is, you have ICA for the top top and the Ultimate Recipe Showdown balances things.

I also love to see that the average home cook can win $25 grand. Marc Summers isn’t bad and Guy Fieri is charming as always. I do have to say the show is in a variety of ways boring though. This could be cleaned up over time, not sure how, but it could. Mind you I see a lot of effort went into making this as least boring as possible. I recognize that, and yes in many ways this achieves that. In other words, this could have been a total sleeper easily, but it’s not.

Still, and again not sure how, but there is a boredom factor. And where it is is when the cooks come out to the kitchens. They all look as though they are moving in slow motion, avoiding the camera and are semi-comatose. I’ve never seen people stir things so slowly in my life. It’s no race but that said I know these folks wouldn’t be stirring things so slowly in their own kitchens. Again, I know, a good cook or chef is not a television personality. That said, could these people, I dunno, behave more real in the kitchen segment? Maybe even talk or acknowledge they’re on a television set, or even in their own kitchen, but not in a dream world? Again, a little work here is the only part needed. The rest of the show has decent if not great pace. The very necessary kitchen part though the show grinds to a halt. Btw, the recipes are on the website, which is more than I can say about the Iron Chef one’s which never get published.

For it’s giving the home cook a chance, the format, the hosts, the places where it’s done it’s best to cut out the boredom, and for it’s current boredom factor that is there. This show gets 3 stars. As the format is brand new, I can foresee this show might correct the boredom factor, or that I might grow to like this more overtime. So this has the definite possibility of rising to 4 stars down the line.

THE HEAT with Mark McEwan (Fine Living)

While this is not as new as the others, I had mentioned previously that I hadn’t gotten a chance to see this show. So made the concerted effort and have now looked at several episodes. And I hate to say it. This show on the Fine Living network makes Ultimate Recipe Showdown look like an exciting hockey game. What’s the problems? First let me list the positives. The chef is charming and engaging. I like him indeed. (And the women think he’s a hunk.) And the show has slick, professional direction, editing, pacing, all that. Ok, that’s the end of the positives, alas.

There’s two huge problems with this show. One, it can’t hold a candle to Dinner: Impossible. Once you’ve seen Robert Irvine “MacGuyver” a meal for 200 out of sticks and chickenwire, or make 17,000 appetizers in six hours, or cook on a moving train from a kitchen smaller than a Manhatten efficiency apartment … and compare it to this show, it’s Snoresville. so sorry Mark, but having “problems” with being short a few waiters while working in a normal functional facility, well the “so called drama” doesn’t cut it at all. Oh my goodness, there was also the episode that revolved totally around “will the blue-tail tuna he promised the client get there in time” … gasp!? Will the opera house empty out 10 whole minutes early? This minituae while reflecting real life is still one major Yawn City compared to the trials and tribulations Irvine goes through where you hear him intone: “The guests are arriving by boat in 30 minutes and I have no fire to cook anything” or “I’m supposed to make 10,000 pieces of fried chicken but there are no deep fryers anywhere” or “I can get the meal done, but the reception area is a mile away on the other side of the campus”. You just can’t compete with that.

What’s as bad or worse. No recipes! Most of the time only a few of the dishes being served are ever mentioned by name, or briefly shown on camera. The bulk of the dishes aren’t mentioned nor shown at all. Forget what ever went into them. Uh, Hello? This is allegedly a food show, remember that? Apparently not. Sorry, there’s but a single food show on TV that can get away without showing recipes and that’s Ace of Cakes. We want to see the design and we want to see it get to the client in time. In fact, Ace of Cakes has sincerely more drama that “Heat”. When a speciality cake falls apart in the delivery van and the celebration is 45 minutes away and it took a week to make … Now that’s drama, baby. Heat can’t hold a candle to any of the things that go wrong for Duff or Irvine. And even were there no comparison to other shows this still would not change thngs; this is a boring show featuring very little food and zero recipes! That’s just insane. Come on. What’s the sense of watching? None. Oh, and just to see if maybe, maybe, to help give a couple of points here at least, that maybe the recipes might be on the website? A bit of a saving grace? Nope. Nada. Figures!

Sorry, but the so-called THE HEAT (yes the show has the tenacity to put this in big capital letters, just makes you want to heave) definitely needs to be renamed “the tepid” (in all lower-cased letters). For the magnetic host who could really shine in a very different television series, a rating of slightly better than a goose-egg, a single star.

Down Home with the Neely’s (The Food Network)

Well, Lordy! Black people can cook! Hey hey, that’s not news to me, but it is apparently the new-found revelation of the Food Network. That’s right. Just why it has taken the Food Network until late in 2007 (Ingrid Hoffmann’s Simply Delicioso) to finally have a Latin cooking show? And not until 2008 to have a cooking show where the cooks are black? I mean, really! (No, sorry, Al Roker eating diner food does not count. I said cook, not eat.) Ok, let me chill. Past is past. Let’s just call it pasta water under the bridge for now. But I had to get that out. It’s been gnawing inside for way too long.

In any event the hosts and cooks, Pat (the hubbie) and Gina, make for fun watching. Mind you, they have big personalities and are totally wild. This might not appeal to a few folks, though I’d rather see someone’s personality “spice” up a show than watch the other extreme, the boring and the bored. Since Rachel and Paula also have big personalities I’m confident these two are likewise going to be a hit. It really is fun to watch them in a kitchen, and to be candid this is probably the first time I’ve seen a two-host, two cooks in the kitchen show actually succeed. They both are good on their own and together they have great chemistry. And you can tell the affection and fun they have is genuine; it’s just impossible to ever script this.

Do they get a tad too silly? Sometimes. Does it get a tad too sickening sweet? Almost, but a) they draw back from the edge and b) because you know they’re sincere, being themselves it works. Alright, so enough with personality, let’s get down to it: How’s the cooking? He and his brothers own Neely’s which has two locations in Memphis and one in Nashville, and I’ve seen their restaurant many many times over the years as among the best BBQ joints in the nation. In fact you literally cannot do an American barbecue show without mentioning them. So they both can cook and cook well. Two shows I’ve seen now and I definitely want to eat and make the dishes they’ve come up with. (Check further below where I talk about FN Dish to see a video of The Neely’s.) What’s the verdict? It took way too long, FN, but at least you got it right the first time. Neelys make delcious food and you have a fun time watching them do it too.

Last Restaurant Standing (BBC America)

Not sure why, but having heard the premise I didn’t think I would like this new reality competition food show. So much so it delayed my watching it, missing the first episode or two. I can report I was happily mistaken. Sometimes it’s in the editing, the pace, the coverage. Whatever, this show has it. For one, the completing folks here (usually married couples, but there are two twin sisters) have a real restaurant. I thought they were going to jam these people in “faux” restaurants, you know, the way they do the restaurant challenge segment every year on Top Chef. But these are real. And not even next to each other or stuck in one place. They’re 50-100 miles (I guess being Britain I should say kilometers) apart in some cases. As I said it’s real. And I was putting off watching this not expecting that, and delighted it is.

In short a famous French chef now in England, Raymond Blanc, who’s rolling in the dough gives nine sets of folks their chance to open a restaurant. We follow them each week. Besides how they do — do they loose patrons, do they make a profit — they are also given assignments, for instance this week it was “now that they are open, create cocktails and desserts and push them”. You see, this is where the money is made, not off the entrees as much. These are the things that keep restaurants in business and help them make a profit. We watch as the competitors each deal with their own struggling new business, new week problems, each other, and the new challenge. Each week a restaurant is closed down until one remains on which the main chef guy finds is worth his investing in. In short, they win.

Nice idea. Cameras in each restaurant. Case managers to check in. Well executed. It all comes down to, do I care to see what happens next week? And indeed I do. I’m looking forward to it. That’s the mark of any show, but especially the hallmark of a reality competition show. Another score for those folks across the Pond. If I find at the end of the season it stayed high, it could rank from me a rare five stars. As it’s new and I’m not yet addicted (and not sure if I will be or not) for now, a still excellent: 4 stars.

Not reviewed this time out: Everyday Baking on PBS from the folks (Martha Stewart actually) that bring us Everyday Food. Why? I keep missing it. Yeah, I know “Tivo it”. Soon as I get one. Will review this in the future.

The FN Dish

One new show isn’t on television. It’s a weekly webcast. On The FN Dish (love the play on words) food blogger makes good. Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet, and now author, interviews various FN stars and takes us behind the scenes. (Btw, since it’s a webcast and an interview show, I’m skipping the rating system for this one.)

Existing Shows Mini-Reviews

: 5 stars : a sumptuous feast time and time again
: 4 stars : so good you want second helpings
: 3 stars : a decent meal but it needs spice
: 2 stars : brown-bag lunch with stale bread
: 1 star : a TV dinner from the Sixties
: 0 stars : I’d rather have salmonella

Note: This time ’round this isn’t a cross-sampling but a list of the best out there, ergo the high ratings.

Wolfang Puck (Fine Living) When this show first began the opening out-of-kitchen segment involved Puck going to his food sources: an artisan farm for tomatoes, La Bria bakery for fresh bread. Great idea … one that lasted only a few episodes. Since then, every opening segment is about the fellow celebs Wolfgang rubs elbows with; vignettes of him smoozing with fellow Austrian, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or Whoppie Goldberg or whomever. In short, bring back the food segment, Wolfgang, cause it’s the only thing keeping you “down” to a four-star rating. The rest of the show is priceless and this is a must-see.

Iron Chef America (Food Network) It’s the grand dame, the Super Bowl-and-Spoon, the ultimate cooking sporting event. Overall they get everything right. No one but Alton Brown could ever look at the bizarre things the chefs out out on the counter and immediately know what they are. They even have their own “Simon Cowell” in the form of frequent and minuitae-picking judge Jeffrey Steingarten The fact FN makes this the single show they refuse (why?) to publish the recipes on the website is majorly annoying though.

America’s Test Kitchen (PBS) An excellent over-all job, great tips, I love the kitchen corner comparisons too as no one but they do it (though still getting hopped up over $150 dutch ovens as “bargains” makes me fell that they sometimes forget their audience is home cooks not Michelin-star chefs making Michelin-star money.) This show is great because behind the scenes they test things six ways to Sunday and then film the best. As a side note, the fact some of the recipes on their website they wont show you unless you pay them seems rather miserly.

Dinner: Impossible (Food Network) Super entertaining while it keeps the focus on food, see how it’s prepared, recipes are shown during the show (and found on the website). Chef Robert Irvine is an amazing talent he really does do the impossible. And he has a great sense of humor. There is nothing not to love about this show, and from a sometimes picky critic, that’s a lot to say.

Take Home Chef (TLC) While there are some fans who gripe about the new format — where he goes to viewers who sent in letters or videos — instead of randomly picking up folks from the same cities all the time, I enjoy that he’s now travelling to other places and therefore giving more folks a chance. Other than that it’s the same old show. Which in this case is a good thing. The women love hunky Curtis and more important to me, I love his cooking and style and variety. If only they would get the recipes up on the website more timely as well as lose that hokey listing by person’s name style (again on the website).

Simply Ming (PBS) Love the blending of east meets west defined by two pairing ingredients from each side of the earth .. and he’s entertaining as well, plus excellent guests (parents included). And he fills a major niche. Sure there are and have been other Asian cooking shows with top chefs, but often one is made to feel you can’t do that, it’s too out of your realm. Ming Tsai has a way of doing the opposite. Maybe some of the recipes are a bit strange, but that’s the idea, opening up your mind and your tastebuds. And he does it in a way that makes you feel (correctly) that you can do it too.

Throwdown with Bobby Flay (Food Network) Between the research segment (when there is one), his experimenting in the kitchen and one he’s going up against, you end up wtih two or three top notch variations on a recipe. Spotlighting a certain dish each week. Bobby is always entertaining, and the contest always interesting. Glad Bobby has changed his former style of answering every single challenge (and he was often losing at the time too) by adding blue corn meal and hot peppers. He’s won more contests by tossing that out and even though he still goes back to that frequently it’s not every week. How can you not love an Iron Chef who not only duels his contemporaries on ICA but also shares the limelight with home cooks and small restaurant owners?

Late Winter – Early Spring Preview

One new program and the return of two faves premiere over the next several weeks:

Rescue Chef (Food Network) premieres March 1st.

Expectation: High. Usually if someone can help others, he’s pretty learned. I still enjoy the reruns of Tyler Florence’s Food 911 where he showed great versatility. The host on this new reincarnation of the genre is Danny Boome, advertised as a hockey player, runway model chef. Yuck. Great promoting — Not. These commercials turn me off as they showcase what seems to be a guy who just picked up his spatula for the time.

Fortunately I checked out his resume and — whew — thankfully Boome has the food creds. One last thing, one part of the FN website says his show isn’t on until March 1st, another part of the site says it started two weeks ago. As I’ve said often before, the right hand never knows what the left is doing at this network. If it’s not the commercials and the shows don’t correspond with each other then it’s the website and the shows. FN continues to be the brilliant but nutty professor, 90% brilliant and 10% clueless. At least I can live with the percentages in that order.

The Return of Our Favorite Cooking Reality Shows

Top Chef (Bravo) Season 4 starts March 12th.

Here they come, with the four judges we know so well — Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons and Ted Allen — and 16 brand new contestants. The only reality show that has the unique talent of stretching itself out into six months. And now Bravo can do it’s usual, drop all it’s other shows and moprh into the 24-hour Top Chef Network again. If this falls into the pattern of previous years, expect the judges to tell the contestants each week that they’re not trying hard enough to think outside of the box and then belittle them for doing it and send them packing. (The greatest repeated stupidity of this other-wise fine show.)

So let’s see if the judges remains inconsistant again this season. If they get me fed up enough I really might drop watching and reviewing it; they really do get me that annoyed at times. I still find the fact that they filmed this last fall and yet won’t announce the winner live until something like August. Must be the only reality show where the final contestants have to wait something like eight months to know if they’ve won. Strange. And yet it works, for us the television audience.

Hell’s Kitchen (Fox) Season 4 starts April 1st.

Ironic date? One thing that is no joke, really, is every single time I watch a Gordon Ramsay show with my nonagenarian mother, the censors beep him and he curses so much and in such long strings that my Mom invariably asks if the phone is ringing! LMAO! That is 100% true.

Yes, it’s the return of one of the most famous chefs in the entire world. And I’m still not sure how much of it is for his cooking and not his notoriously foul mouth. The fact is, despite the flaws, we like Gordon. Not certain why, and yet I’m among those who like him. Maybe it’s because as annoying as he is, he speaks his mind in an age of politically correct people who all seem brain-washed into keeping their mouths shut. Maybe he’s the external avatar of the green demon inside us all yearning to be free.

All of that aside, this show has the best editing and pacing of any reality show out there. And we get interested in the people, from the short order chefs and home cooking divas who think they can be gourmet chefs, to the back-biting, back-stabbing, and in the midst of all this we get to see food dishes too. All I know is it’s a winning formula and for me, when it’s on, it’s the most addictive of all shows. I can never wait until next week. So get ready for the “big boys” and the herd of “donkeys”, the shining stars and the morons. I always like to figure out who will be the “Tom” or “Aaron” of this season. And will there be any sabotaging “Saras” in the bunch. We’ll know in roughly five more weeks.

I’m already awaiting my first course of “you burnt the bloody risotto” followed by an entree of undercooked “you could kill somebody” chicken.

©2008 Harry Kenney

Wolfgang is Back!

… with his show simply called Wolfgang Puck. Now I have to admit I missed the first few of the new shows already. Because, quite candidly, not watching too much Fine Living (FL) channel, I see only a few of their commercials. In short I had no idea it existed until several days into it’s run.

Ok, wait, this isn’t a knock on the FL channel as I do watch several of their shows, it’s just fewer shows than the Food Network (FN) as FL does a variety of programming, most of which I’m not as interested in. That said, their take on food and beverage, the shows they’ve come up with often show even more innovation than FN does. Let me save this for later below and get back to “Wolfy”.

As I said I missed a few already before discovering it was even on. The one’s I’ve seen so far, one dealt with the tomato, that meant — yes baby — an excuse for Puck to show us how to make pizza! So we had pizza dough making, a four-cheese pizza, gazpacho soup and a visit to a California farm where Puck gets all his tomatoes from. Another show featured bread, and we got to see La Brea Bakery, then Wolfgang made foaccia bread (mmm, one of my favorites I’m going to have to try this now) and what to do with the bread? Why a gourmet BLT, namely barbecued shrimp BLT on foaccia. Yes my mouth is watering already. The guy is a legend, he’s still so upbeat and energetic and passionate about food, he really does get you passionate about it. Charming, magnetic, it’s great to see him do a “crowd” show (a la Emeril) which he interacts with and works with incredibly well. And hey, he’s the master. What can you not love about this show? It’s Wolfgang!

The show airs 1pm weekdays. Though with only 12 episodes so far listed on the FL website, who knows where, when and how far this is going to go. I’m thinking the response should be big and that we’ll be continuing to have a whole lot more Wolfgang around

On a related note, you might want to set your TIVO or VCR and capture his repeating episodes from Food Network’s old 2004 or 2005 show Wolfgang Puck’s Cooking Class which still sometimes (yes, it’s off and on again) air at 4am. Or you can just stay up and watch them. Hmm, I have no idea if I should kick FN for airing them so late or applaud them for having the sense to continue airing these fine shows. Guess it evens out in the end.

Jamie’s Big Return

Second new show is the return of the cook Mario Batali has called the Rolling Stones of British cooking (because of how a mob shows up any time he’s out anywhere). With nine cookbooks under his belt in less that many years, the UK sensation, the third leg of the British cooking triad (Gordon Ramsey and Nigella Lawson being the other two) the one and only mop-haired Jamie Oliver in Jamie at Home. With previous American shows The Naked Chef which made him a star, at least here, and Oliver’s Twist, in the newest venture “Jamie’s back doing what he does best – cooking at home with simple, accessible ingredients, including fruits and vegetables fresh from his backyard garden.”

His first episode tackles Pumpkin and Squash, then Pastry, followed by Peppers and Chilies, and then Mushrooms. Actually I have to say I like the way that’s done, focusing in on specific thing and then taking off on it. It’s definitely very “in” in the sense of the whole organic meets artisan feel of cooking with fresh ingredients. I was also impressed a week or so ago when, although he lost to Mario Batali on ICA, it was by a mere two points in taste and that for a secret ingredient he proclaimed he’s never tasted before. Spot on. The show airs Saturday mornings at 9:30am.

Martin Yan’s China

A new series from the “old” master of Chinese cuisine, Martin Yan’s China. With the world’s attention being focused later this year on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing so Yan has taken on a different look to that ancient country. In his new television series on PBS of course he first travels to various places in China, restaurants, kitchens, homes. Checks out the techniques first hand, then it’s back in the studio kitchen for Yan to both show the home cook how to do these themselves and how he combines authentic and traditional techniques and introduces new flavors and methods of cooking too. In the second episode of the series I caught just today, we look at Panda’s in their native habitat and then chef Yan makes his mother’s “Weekly Chicken Soup” recipe back at the kitchen. Being PBS, you’ll need to check your own local station for air times; for me it’s on Saturdays around mid-afternoon.

The show’s so new the book isn’t yet available. Here’s a tip though. On Yan’s website — which is out of the book btw — the new cookbook goes for around $25. However, you can go here and preorder it, and when it comes out at the end of April you get it about $16.50! Pre-Order “Martin Yan’s China” at a Third Off.

Rachel Does the World

The next new show is Rachel’s Vacation. Ok, Even I have to start wondering how does she do it with a major network show every day, continuing to do the 30 Minute Meals and now a second (how can you forget $40-a-day?) travelogue show to boot? The description from the website: “Rachael’s Vacation takes viewers on an international odyssey. From pubs in Dublin to markets in Bordeaux, from a fairy tale carriage ride in Lisbon to a marathon of tapas in Barcelona, Rachel charts her course for exciting finds near and far.”

I’m kind of yawning I must admit, but please Rachel fans don’t hit me. It’s not her as much as it’s just few travel shows with a food spin really do me. I’ve never been thrilled about shows like A Cook’s Tour, Feasting on Asphalt, or that show who’s name escapes me where Paula Deen’s sons hop into a car. Mind you, there is the occasional travel-meets-food show I’ll watch, Giada in Paradise because (hey, it’s paradise) who doesn’t want to watch the view from or eat the local food found at Capri or Santorinni (I don’t watch her other local travel show mind you). Also of note in this genre is Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, because it is a fresh take on an otherwise (to me) stale concept. If you however love these type of shows or are a Rachel groupie, then you’ll no doubt find her latest right up your alley. This one premieres tonight, January 12th and is shown every Saturday night at 9pm.

Favorite Cooking Shows with New Episodes

So that’s the brand new shows this month. Meanwhile a ton of established cooking shows are already airing fresh new episodes everywhere: On PBS, America’s Test Kitchen and Everyday Food.

Take Home Chef Curtis Stone has a brand new season of shows airing on TLC. He’s charming, he can cook, his recipes are versatile and like the show’s overall theme on things. There’s a new format this season though which (from what I can tell from the site) fans aren’t sure if they like or not. I’m just happy for the brand new episodes.

An abysmal, horrible website though. Oh the flashy (literally) front page seems a good intro, but that’s it. You can’t tell what episodes are new or rerun. The recipe index goes by the name of the woman he cooked for. There’s a forum who’s script must have been written in 1994 because it’s readable but just barely, and it’s as confusing as the rest of the site is. It’s like something an 8 year old would toss up. I say eight year old because a 13 year old would have made a much better website than this. Also the new recipes are not up for the new shows either (or if they are, who can find them?) TLC really deserves to be slapped upside the head for both the very little promotion it gives this fine show and the moronic website. Curtis deserves much better and so does his fans.

On Food Network, the early Saturday lineup from 9 am to about 1:30 pm is currently 100% new with Tyler’s Ultimate, Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee, Paula’s Home Cooking, Rachel’s 30 Minute Meals, the still relatively new Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffmann, Giada’s Everyday Italian, Ina’s Barefoot Contessa, and Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger.

Now some of those Saturday morning and afternoon shows are also shown during weekday afternoons. Among those on daily which have new episodes (besides those mentioned above) include the Essence of Emeril, Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller and Paula’s Home Cooking. At night, there are new episodes of Unwrapped and yes, some of the 7pm Emeril Live programs are brand new as well.

And new episodes of chef Robert Irvine’s wonderful — I really do love this show tremendously — Dinner: Impossible begin this Wednesday night at 10pm when Robert takes on making hor’s d’oeuvres for a mere 2,900 Alaskan cruise passengers in an impossibly limited amount of time. Duff is back with the Charmed City gang and Ace of Cakes in roughly a week or so.

Meanwhile it looks as though (but it’s very hard to tell as Food Network is not good at releasing schedules) Bobby Flay’s Throwdown is taking a rest as well as Iron Chef America, after both having just shown a spade of new shows at the tail end of last year.

The Food Shows of Fine Living

A nice bunch of new food shows came on the Fine Living network in the latter part of 2007, with The Martha Stewart Show naturally being the biggest. Naturally, anyone who knows Martha knows the show “covers the spectrum” from home remodeling to crafts to cooking and a billion other things. Being as my particular interests lie in only one of those areas, I don’t get to see the show that often. What I have seen either from episodes descriptions, a commercial or on occasion actually turning the dial to the show is Martha does have an excellent variety of chefs on there from all walks. That is, we get very used to the chefs we see on television that have their own shows, whether they’re from FN or PBS or elsewhere. And obviously there are hundreds of fantastic chefs, many up and comers, who we often don’t see. Well, they can be found here in Stewart’s show. So keep your eyes peeled and you can catch others out there making their stamp on the culinary world who you won’t find on TV anywhere else.

Also among the newer shows that are now a few months old are two of my new favorites I highly recommend. First up, Shopping With Chefs. Both hosts, Chef Jill Davie and Chef David Myers bring a lot of knowledge and Davie especially a lot of enthusiasm. Going through the various tools, appliances and foods as well. Mind you sometimes you have to question whether you really need a special shrimp devainer or whathaveyou. But by going through the low-end to the top-end variety of each melon baller to rice cooker, you get to see the whole variety of what’s out there, even though you know few of us will ever want the $300 roasting pan, Seriously, it’s a very good show to watch that focuses on those tools of the trade even a home cook needs and which every other show glosses over. It’s a great niche, a very important area that needed focusing on for a long time, and now it’s here and it delivers.

Great Cocktails with mixologist Stephen Phillips The show is a bit funky and tad whacky, both by nature of the content and the nature of the host. When you first watch you think, this guy isn’t totally there. After a while, no, you don’t change that initial assessment, you just realize it’s a bit endearing and that you’re happy he’s a pimento pit left of center as it makes the perfect guide. Another niche in the food and beverage area that had been long overlooked while this show isn’t for everyone, you may be surprised to find it is for you. You owe it to yourself to turn in on for say ten minutes and then decide. I’m betting most will find this a welcome addition to the viewing schedule.

I’m going to have to come back to The Heat with Mark McEwan at some other time, simply because they must have the show on during a time when I’m watching something else. One of Fine Living’s problems with their television schedules is, unlike sister channel Food Network, they don’t rerun things often. Miss it once and you can’t see it two nights from now or four days from now. The next time will be (as though it were a major network) the same time next week. So if the show you want to see clashes with something else then you (and Fine Living apparently) are out of luck. Really FL, you are not a major network, you’re cable, more than that you are speciality cable. Dot your shows around more and you’ll pick up a larger audience.

Older shows that rerun which I still enjoy, Michael Chiarello’s Napa Style, Ming Tsai’s East Meets West, Batali’s Molto Mario, The Thirsty Traveler with Kevin Brauch (who does the floor reporting / color commentary on FN’s Iron Chef America) and one of the most innovative shows ever done when you think about the logistics involved Follow That Food with host Gordon Elliot who now spends most of his time behind the camera producing Paula Deen’s cooking shows and others at the Food Network.

All in all some very engaging shows, new and old, so big kudos to Fine Living for their fine contributions to the cooking, food and beverage (as well as kitchen shopping) shows. And for bringing back Mr. Puck. Now go get more episodes of Wolfgang in the can please as we want to see more of him.

The Food Network (FN) is a strange animal. I liken it to my cat. My cat does what she wants. She’s sweet one moment, a disaster the next. She shows surprising brilliance usually as well as amazing acrobatic skills. At other times she takes her favorite little ball and purposely sticks it under the sofa and pushes it so far in so she can no longer get to it any more, to her own detriment. She’ll also make a jump from the floor up to the window, a move she’s done thousands of times, and every once in a while inexplicably misshoot it and fall to the ground dazed. Silly cat!

She’s often entertaining, my cat, and overall I do adore her. But quite often she gets in wild and weird moods, running around the house super fast and going no where, scratching things she shouldn’t. and behaving in ways just plain annoying and which make me wonder just what is going through that furry little mind of hers.

And the same goes for the Food Network, all of it. Like my cat, I overall adore it, but I’ll call my cat out when it’s bad and reward it when it’s good. So any of you foodies who thinks I’m picking on FN just for the sake of it, you’re woefully mistaken. And I’ve just explained why. And now, with that in mind, let me start some jeers.

First let me introduce the over all theme: Food Network needs learn to match it’s marketing campaigns (repeated commercials) with its actual programming and stop confusing (and annoying) everyone.

Jeer #1: The Iron Chef who was then wasn’t there

Apparently who ever does the commercials doesn’t seem to know what’s actually on the programs. And vica versa, the shows don’t seem to know what’s being promoted. What happens is one giant confusion.

Let’s take the most glaring single example of late, the first two Iron Chef America’s (ICA) of the new season. The week after the new Iron Chef Michael Symons wins, he does his first real gig in Kitchen Stadium. Perfect timing. (Good kitty!) There was no wait; FN got him off the bench and into action a week later. Plus it’s the timing of that episode, Battle Thanksgiving, was of course perfect being four days before said holiday (again, well done, and well-thought out). I do have one qualm over that particular show, there was some weird editing in this episode that was just awful, namely the flash forwards so we could get disjointed reports on final creations before they were ever made that were majorly confusing and very annoying (bad, kitty).

Ok, then the next week (this past Sunday) we have the second new ICA episdoe of the season with Cat Cora taking on a challenger. Oh, but wait, the opening of the show and there’s now only the four original Iron Chefs. Huh? What of Symons? Apparently, two weeks after his winning and he doesn’t exist. Yes, a single week after he’s actually performed his initial duties and after over nearly three months of hype, he’s gone! Call out an APB … for ICA’s producer’s brain, that is. Or for whomever is in charge of “Food Network Continuity” … sorry, I’m laughing my self silly here, for obviously such a position cannot possibly exist.

What makes this even worse is the constant commercials … “a new Iron Chef has joined the Pantheon of greats … the five of them stand ready to take on all new challengers … all new shows, tune in now”. And then the Cora battle episode, a brand new one, with no Symon. Come on, FN! Get on the stick. Stop being the paragon of food one moment and then acting like a cable-access basement show the next.

Obviously you filmed this before he won, but are you saying you can make a six-part series, you can have him on, you can do all this timing perfectly, and yet you’re too lazy or stupid to do a 10-second edit fixing him in the second show of the seasons title??? Sloppy sloppy. Very erratic.

FN, you couldn’t “pull another Cora edit”? Anyone who’s watched Iron Chef has noticed the flags in the background change from one moment to the next on the intros, as if by magic. Cora isn’t there. She is, she isn’t. And when you see a closeup you’ll notice she’s never seen with any of the other three chefs in a single take. It’s slick editing. Nothing wrong with that. Quite understandable and very well done. …. So why couldn’t you take the time out and do that with Symon??

And all while the commercials running before and after that say otherwise. Meanwhile the home audience is sitting there confused. Is this a new one? Is this an old show? FN is the master of leaving it’s core audience dazed and confused, and here is a prime example. Big boo.

Jeer #2: “We answer your questions” means “buy our gear!”

Isolated incident? Hell no. Part of a pattern of confusion. Like my kitty, one moment, poetry in motion, the next moment, making an easy jump and falling on it’s head dazed.

Very confusing and ultra annoying was the November advertising campaign. Again, like all FN campaigns these commercials show every 10 minutes between almost every lick of show time. If I had to get out a calculator. Eh, let’s just say six times every hour 24-7. It’s so omni-present you grow quickly sick of the commercials if you dare watch two hours in a row. Which I often do. Have the remote handy for the mute button for the ads I say.

November was “We Answer Your Questions” or something … I think they called it “Dear Food Network”. So, silly me, expects to see a bunch of different mini-specials along the lines of the “Food 911″ show premise throughout the month. After all that’s what the six times per hour commercial “promises.” Nope. There was one. And yes, it was a goodie with several of the different stars showed up at folks homes and helped out with their Thanksgiving dish problems. Again, the show itself, very nicely done. But the build up was “we answer your questions all month long every night” was complete horse manure.

What actually did go on all month long was the same four Guy Fieri commercials where he stands in the street, asks someone what Turkey Day cooking problem they needed to over come, and the answer to each one was ? Buy Food Network’s cookware line. Grrrrr! So a confusing somewhat deceptive campaign that was so omnipresent you couldn’t avoid it, and a one hour pay off. And the every night part was every day and every night shilling their merchandise. Very very loud and resonant boooooooooo!!

Jeer #3: Stuff that annoying “holi-dazzle” up your turducken!

More confusion for December? Of course the trend continues. But I do want to quickly say and say this once. I can live with the tagline of “Seasons Eatings”. It’s cutsy. It makes sense. But what is with this “Holi-dazzle” crapola??? I would love to say if I hear it one more time I’m going to puke. Sadly it’s on (as said) six times every hour for the next 21 days. To which I can only reply: “I hate you.” Like when my cat got her claw stuck in my good shirt and put an unrepairable three inch rip in it. She might be my darling, but at that moment I think: “I hate you”. The same thing I think every 10 minutes (and for the next 21 days) that I have your network on and hear that stupid insipid saying.

Jeer #4: I’ll have some tiramasu, hold the cold sores

Oh, FN, could you maybe start screening your advertiser’s before airing the commercials? I’m talking about where I’m watching a cooking show, it goes to a commercial. I’m looking forward to seeing how the dish turned out. Meanwhile, here’s a commercial for some food. Yummy. Here’s a commercial about some more food. More yummy. Then I have a woman on the screen with a big canker sore peeling it off and saying to go buy her pharmaceutical cure. Now back to looking at how that brisket turns out. Ok, I’m not puking, but I am hacking. My stomach’s making groaning noises. I no longer want to see the brisket. I think I’ll go out and rake some leaves now. A lip sore commercial amongst all that food? Come’on! Stop dropping the ball. Yet another way of repelling your audience. Think, people, think!

Jeer #5: Confusorama: Where reruns and new shows collide

Ok you ideas people there at the Food Network, tell me something. If you can come up with something (so inspid but different) as “holi-dazzle” how come in four years you can’t think of a name of a special that doesn’t sound exactly the same as every other special???

Witness the confusion: “All-Star Holiday Spirit”, “All-Star Holiday Party”, “All-Star Holiday Gifts”, “All-Star Holiday Cookies”, “All-Star Desserts”, “All-Star Dessert Battle”, “All-Star Holiday Dishes” … Two of these specials are new, the others are the reruns (though good reruns) from previous years. Can you look at those and answer correctly which are which? Of course not.

The commercials all promote the new one and suggest that is what you should be looking for. The ear catches the name “All-Star”, turns on the TV that evening, and you sit there and blink, wondering why you are watching the same one you saw in 2004 again (and it will be shown eight more times between now and Christmas too), and didn’t they just advertise all day long about a new one tonight??? Then you begin to see the repeated pattern the next day and the next night, and you start to realize — especially after all of last month’s “Dear Food Network” malarky, that what they say isn’t what they actually do, and you start to ignore what they say.

Added to this already messed up confusion is that “All-Star Dessert Battle” and “Iron Chef America: Battle Sugar” are two names for the exact same show. Yeah this is where you start hitting your head on the desk repeatedly and going “why?!”

What are you going to come up with in the coming years if you continue this theme while exhausting recipes? “All-Star Holiday Side Dishes”? “All-Star Holiday Uses of Olive Oil”? “All-Star Holi-dazzle Cold Sore Sharings”?

Oh and I am not going to “do my homework” here and look these up to get the correct names. I’m going to go by my mixed up memory just to prove how (I need a new word for confusing …) jumbled-up these specials get. Now in the past couple weeks I’ve seen “Rachel Ray’s 30-Minute Thanksgiving”, “Rachel’s 60-Minute Thanksgiving”, “Rachel’s 60-Minute Thanksgiving – Part 2″ — Hello? I didn’t see these shows but isn’t that a total of 120 minutes or are these two different meals? I have no idea at this point. And the other night I saw listed something like “Rachel Ray’s 60-Minute Holiday Meal” which I guess is (cough) supposed to differentiate Christmas (or maybe it’s Columbus Day, that’s a holiday too, you know) from the Thanksgiving one.

Why am I so critical? A network that deals with creativity. Television programming and cooks and chefs that day-to-day deal with creativity, yet Food Network can only come up with names that all sound the same and run into each other in a totally incoherent mess? Jeers city!

Continued pattern of confusion leads slowly to mistrust

It’s misleading. It’s confusing. And it’s a pattern of confusion, repeated in new and dumb ways. If you wanted to get nasty you might say deception. Yes, it is deceptive. How much is intentional or how much is lack of thinking is the only thing that stops me from full out calling it deception, but it’s getting there. You see, the slow creeping thought of mistrust starts entering the picture after a while, and that, Food Network, you seem oblivious to realizing.

The fact is, you just never know what you’re going to get on this television network. The viewers start to think like this …. There’s a new iron chef, but he’s not even mentioned on that night’s show as ever existing after two months of nothing but. There’s a new show on tonight with the whole line up, or is it the one from 2005? There’s specials all month answering our questions, or is there actually a single special and 5,000 iterations of FN schlocking their cookware at Kohls commercial? After a while you don’t know what to believe and you start to pretty much not believe in anything they tell you. Or, more appropirately, take whatever they say with a grain of salt. No doubt sea salt. And that is the problem. The Food Network has a way of shooting itself in the foot time after time again and ruining it’s credibility. And can you really afford that, FN?

Especially can you afford to do this when your history of reality competition shows have mysterious and enigmatic (to be polite) elements tied to so many of them? When you have had production disasters on the Next Iron Chef that were never mentioned. That no one seems to know what happened to your first Food Network Star (or in that case stars)? And while everyone stlll wonders why the switch at the end of the last Food Network Star season (I’m talking the return of disqualified Amy, not the leaving of JAG). And do you think anyone has forgotten that the “go vote all week, go vote now for your favorite new star” commercials were running, but the voting on the website mysteriously closed early — it was shut down by Thursday afternoon for a show that was not having its finale until Sunday night?

And does anyone ever wonder what happened to season one of Iron Chef America whose episodes never never air — especially while all the other ones have been shown many many times and no doubt will continue to do so in the future? And why after all the money spent to make them were all ten episodes shown not over three months but a single weekend and then never seen the light of day again? What happened there? With such strange history as this can you keep making these other blunders constantly and remain untarnished? Doubtfully.

Food Network: Scarecrow or tin man?

Seriously, Dear Food Network, you do so much right and then you do so much needlessly wrong, and or confusing. You draw in and then manage to repel your core audience. You’re my cat who jumps on my lap and purrs — then hears a bird singing in the tree or a car backfire and jumps off my lap taking a part of thigh flesh with it.

Call me a romantic, call me a dreamer, maybe even a bit of a sucker, but I do want to believe in you. I don’t, but I wanna. I think as television networks go you’re probably the rarity as you seem to actually have a heart. Mind you, a heart at a television network and a subdivision of a global multinational information and entertainment empire is pretty rare, but I think you do have one. I think you mean to be sincere and genuine. Which is why it’s painful that you’re your own worse enemy. And again if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be booing so much. It’s tough love, essentially. And you need to shape up and stop confusing and putting off the audience you think you’re embracing.

I said I think you’re a network with a heart. And so let’s finish this off with a cheer that goes towards proving it.

Big Cheer: Well done with your SOS campaign!

Television networks will rarely support a cause. When they do, it’s always something timid. Stop doing drugs. Read a book at the library. And when the do these, it often comes off as self-serving public relations is the intent more than the actual project or cause. So with that as the precedent, I have to give a huge and enthusiastic cheer to Food Network’s big promoting the Share Our Strength (SOS) movement to end childhood hunger in America. A perfect match and well-match core demographic, people who want to hear about this and who are the right ones to participate. Keep this kind of thing up. It shows you do care. More importantly it’s the right thing to do.

Time to go around the “dial” — remember when televisions had dials? or am I dating myself again” — and look at what’s happening and what’s worth watching in television food land.

The Next Iron Chef Finale

First to mention, as it’s a limited series and about to end tomorrow in fact is The Next Iron Chef. In two previous articles I’ve mentioned some of the “bad” or annoying that’s happened on the show. The behind the scenes and little known blunders created by the production team that put the competing chefs through hell as well as how later the judges seemed to think they were on another show where the idea was to change the essence of who each chef is. And while those were indeed valid revelations and criticisms, I probably wouldn’t have written about them unless on some level I cared. And indeed I do.

I’m glad they did it this way, that is, had a competition instead of just deciding behind the scenes and then announcing or crowning a new culinary warrior. Again, I think some things were stupid — what Iron Chef has ever had to run down aisles with frozen food to an airplane. Stupid, stupid. But I have to agree it made for interesting television, and that’s apparently what it’s all about — be it to the success or the detriment of the show. But again, I care. Doesn’t matter whether the chairman is an actor or not. Doesn’t matter if the chairman on the original Iron Chef of Japan was a quirky billionaire foodie or a producer with an imaginary alter ego and over-the-top sense of theatre.

Iron Chef America

The concept of the Iron Chef is excellent. It means something and it’s important. Anyhow the weird shenanigans that led to tomorrow night’s final episode aside, I am so looking forward to seeing Chefs Besh and Symon (the two I was rooting for) compete. And compete not in another insipid series of jumping flaming hoops, but where all of the contests should have happened – head to head in kitchen stadium. I’ll be happy for either of these two superlative chefs to win, and will feel bad for the one who comes in second.

Desired: Iron Chef World?

Meanwhile I have one hope — are you listening Food Network (FN)? — can somebody please figure out a way to have an Iron Chef World show? I would love to see America’s Iron Chefs compete against the original Japanese chefs from the 90s show. Or let’s say against an Iron Chef UK team of Gordon Ramsey, Michael Caines, Angela Hartnett and probably Jamie Oliver. Or against a Canadian team of perhaps Makoto Ono, Mark McEwan, Guy Richie and maybe Chef at Home’s Michael Smith. Would love it!! Now please FN, go do it!

Seriously. First, I know you don’t just own the Food Network here, but have the one in Canada. There’s two countries. Your Canadian show does deals with the BBC for programming, so you already have the UK “in”. What’s it take to talk to Channel Plus or the Sky Network and get into a cooperative sharing agreement? If television can do this for the Olympics, it can be done for the food olympics, right? So, you have your marching orders. Go make it so!

The Complete Pepin

So much more to say about different television shows worth watching, that I’ll have to wait and put them in to my next review. For now, since we started off talking about great chefs, let’s continue with two more shows involving great chefs, a redone new show of an old classic featuring a chef who’s contributions to the culinary arts are unparalleled, and another show that gets to show you over two dozen chefs who are making their marks today.

First, in the mid Seventies, Chef Jacques Pepin wrote a revolutionary book called La Technique and later La Methode, two seminal works on the culinary craft. How important is this? Wikipedia defines a seminal work as “a work from which other works grow. The term usually refers to an intellectual or artistic achievement whose ideas and techniques have been adopted or responded to in later works by other people, either in the same field or in the general culture.” Regarding the two books above specifically, I found these words somewhere to describe their importance: “Two books that present the principles of culinary technique and artistry and earned him a place in the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed each year on an author whose contributions to food literature have had a substantial and enduring impact on the American kitchen.”

Great, so what does this have to do with cooking shows? PBS is currently running: The Complete Pepin. On which his seminal works are updated and shown on video. To quote a description of this show: “a new twist on his 1997 hit series, Jacques Pepin’s Cooking Techniques. These thirteen half-hour episodes include his time-tested, classic teachings with brand new opens and closes from the culinary legend. To paraphrase Jacques Pepin, once you acquire essential cooking skills, your culinary repertoire is limited only by your imagination. Throughout the series, your viewers will learn the basics of everything from choosing and maintaining essential cooking equipment, to easy and fun ways to embellish your dishes. Both the novice and professional are sure to appreciate the solid lessons of the series, as well as the boundless passion and enthusiasm of the charismatic Jacques Pepin”

In short then, if you are missing this show and you seriously want to hone the fundamentals of your cooking, you are missing personal cooking lessons by one of the all-time great masters. If you’re interested in the accompanying book, here it is: Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques. You can also get the DVD: The Complete Pepin: Techniques and Recipes

Chef’s Story

The website for the program describes it this way: “These are icons, at the forefront of the American revolution of fine dining” and that comes from the show’s host, Dorothy Hamilton. And talk about creds, she’s only the founder of the French Culinary Institute. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is the cooking version of Inside the Actor’s Studio and Hamilton is our James Lipton. And the idea is marvelous!

Take 26 of the best chefs in America, place them in front of cooking students and an interviewed by a host with, as said, iron-clad credentials. And too, where the Actor’s Studio doesn’t give us the performers actually performing, Chef’s Story has the added bonus of the chef’s ending each session with a quick recipe as example of what defines them.

With an all-star culinary parade of guests that run the gamet from familiar TV faces such as Lidia Bastianich, Bobby Flay, Anthony Bourdain and Tom Colicchio to famous names (for their off-screen accomplishments not for their television appearances) such as chefs Michel Richard and Daniel Boulud. If you’re a foodie of any sort, or just interested in where and how American cuisine got so good in the past twenty years and where it’s at and where it’s going, then this is a must-watch show.

The book that goes with the series can be found here: Chef’s Story: 27 Chefs Talk About What Got Them into the Kitchen. While there is no single all-encompassing DVD for the entire series, each individual show has a separate DVD highlighting each interview and chef. Here’s the one for Chef’s Story Jacques Pepin and the other 25 are available as well.

Now that we’re at the half way point of the mini — repeat, very mini — series known as the six episodes of The Next Iron Chef (NIC) … cheers and jeers. As you can expect, the cheers go to the chefs, the jeers to the judges.

First my picks. It’s so much my own fault I didn’t say this prior to episode one when their were eight contenders, or even last week; saying it now, big deal, two out of four you’ll say. Anyhow, I do say now (and this hasn’t changed since the start, really) I think it’s going to be Besh or Symon. Again, thought so before it started, but only I know I’m telling you the truth here.

Besh and Symon Shine

Why these two? Sheer talent displayed in previously as Iron Chef America contenders that has only been reinforced here in this program. It took me a while to realize Symon was previously “the guy with lots of hair when Bill Murray was in the audience”. Both he and Besh impressed me not only with their cooking in those past food combats, but that they also had things so under control that they easily talked with Alton as they cooked. So many chef challengers are under such fire, we never hear the kind of repartee we do between an Iron Chef and Alton. So those that do always stand out more in my mind.

Besh, I love his sense of humor and his confidence. I saw him in a seafood competition between states on The Food Network and not knowing who he was at the time, I instantly like the guy. Eventually I realized he and this other one was the same person and said Ah, this guy is already a foodie star, he’s going to be a food personality on TV some day. One more thing, of all the eight, these two seem to actually, even under stress, be having the most fun. Even if things are going wrong, they express confidence. So did Jill Davie, though her fare didn’t live up to it. Those three, now two, seemed more than the other’s to “be in their element”. Sanchez at first seems one could knock that he seems to be in perpetual frenzy each time — but then you realize that Bobbie Flay reacts similarly nearly every Iron Chef competition. And we love Bobby and he usually wins, so we can’t knock Aarón for it. To me for some reason Cosentino is the mystery man.

Fine, that out of the way, some more cheers. Symon making a drink (and therefore a third offering when everyone was making two) was very impressive. His doing polenta when no one else did and succeeding in the time to do it, amazing. And Besh oil frying on the grill was excellent. As was his three catfish deserts on the first episode’s challenge. And Kaysen shows he will only get better in the near future; a potential superstar come 2010. Oh, and for giving Sanchez coals … hey, no good deed goes unnoticed or unpunished on NIC, huh? Major kudos for the best sportsmanship of the competition thus far!

Three Giant Cheers to Marou

Now a major, three-Michelin star shout out to Marou — which leads directly into the judges jeers. To Marou for standing his ground and basically saying (my words, not his) “Hey, this is me. You’re trying to change me. I’m not going for it.” He is the only chef so far who by basically chosen himself to leave. They even said his venison dish was the best of the competition, but because he doesn’t listen to them for presentation they got rid of him?

What is this? Grammar school? The judges have now set them up as teachers and best chefs in America if they don’t pay attention to them are expelled? Worse, the judges are themselves acting like children. We love every meal you did, you won this competition by taste, but we hate your plating, you won’t change so see ya. Insanity?!

Btw, do you judges even know plating is 5 points, taste is 20? Or didn’t you get the score card yet on how the show actually works? It seems you didn’t by your actions. Seems you’re going contrary to the spirit of the show for … reasons unknown. But being “true”, nope. You’re failing, judges. Miserably.

Listen to Us or You’re Outta Here

Worse, the judges egos balloon each week. I don’t know if they will be able to fit their heads through the doors next week. Why? Same thing. Now they are telling the chefs who they should be. Not just how they should plate. For Marou who wisely left — again, you so very much have my admiration for doing that, chef!! For Marou his plating was “him”. And they wanted to change that and he didn’t. Now the judges want to change the personalities I didn’t catch or write down this exactly, but this is a very close paraphrase: “The judges feel the aw shucks Southern thing is getting tired. We know it’s who you are, but you should break out of it.”

When did NIC turn into “Queer Eye”? When did someone say this a show where we change who you are and turn you into someone else? I’m getting the feeling these same three judges would be telling Batali to cook something “other than just the same boring Italian crap” and to stop wearing clogs — break out of it, Mario! They would no doubt instruct Paula Deen to work on getting rid of her accent, darken her hair to appeal to a younger audience or she’ll fail, and to just “break out of it”.

Yes, each week the chefs continue to be impressive, and each week I think the judges are going more control freak insane. If Besh gets axed because his food is outstanding but that he’s giving them too much “southern boy”, I swear I am going to give Anthony Bourdain a gun and force the judges to accompany him on his next world tour. Yes, the judges really should “break out of” their boring haute cuisine cycle and explore. Have some pregnant weevils, maybe some monkey brains, mmm-mmm snake venom and OJ — keep them out there a long while, Anthony; show them a good time mosquito-net style.

… or “The Continued Unreality of Reality Television”

Reality television and behind the scenes manipulation by a program’s production staff has become a more common thing as time goes on. British television audiences in particular have been hit hard by this, in degrees from simple “staging” such as Nigella Lawson’s kitchen not being in her own house, all the way up to the “Blue Peter” double-whammy scandals.

Here in the US, the worse that we know of in recent times would be the “Man vs Wild” major fakes from adding smoke machines to a not-so-active volcano summit to the host actually sleeping in motels overnight — instead of in the wild. And that brings us to the latest manipulation. Although not a fake and not a fix in any sense — and therefore seeming at first glance to be a “lesser sin” — these particular production manipulations instead actually influenced and most likely altered the results of an on-air competition, as well as discredited a highly-held institution, and worse of all sent one contestant to the hospital.

I’m speaking of the until now hidden fiasco behind the first episode (which first aired on October 7) of the limited series “The Next Iron Chef” (NIC) shown on Sunday’s at 9pm EST on the Food Network. Anyone who watched the show saw machines repeatedly breaking down, foods that would not behave normally because of the severe heat and chefs (known for working under hot conditions) looked worse than usual, some looked sick.

Break down after break down

In one NIC scene we saw an ice cream machine pretty much break down completely, with milk dripping down the sides on to the floor, thus taking care of that chef’s dish. We also heard one chef yell out to his companions during the competition to forget the freezer as it was over 52 degrees.

Viewers watched as one chef demonstrated saying “when’s the last time you were able to pour honey out of a jar like this.” At another point one chef’s crème fraîche couldn’t establish integrity let alone achieving the necessary peaks because of the severity of the heat. And all of them, especially the second team in there, looked as though they went swimming with their tunics on. Ok, why did it suddenly seem like all these expensive appliances in a world-class kitchen had actually been made by Fisher-Price?

The question plagued me. How is this happening at the CIA? No, not that one, the prestigious Culinary Institute of America. You see, this was like booking a five-star hotel room only to have no television, ripped sheets and the toilet overflowing. This made no sense. Surely if the Food Network has instead gone and rented out the kitchen at Toothless Joe’s Chilli Barn one might expect these kind of disasters. But at the CIA? Nope, this required an explanation because I wasn’t buying it. And it turned out the answer was indeed a simple one: The Food Network production team turned the fans off. It seems they were interrupting the audio too much and that would make for not as good television.

Yes, that’s right. Take eight of the best chefs, place them in the best of all conditions possible to work in, then turn the production in to a nightmare, all for better TV. For anyone who’s a non-foodie reading this, but let’s say a rabid sports fan, imagine the Super Bowl game. Once there, the TV network, the league itself, anyone who has put anything into the production: has the field ripped up, turns on the lawn sprinklers, takes the air out of the footballs and finally confiscates the player’s shoe laces. Make any sense? And yet that’s precisely what the Food Network production crew did to it’s own show; gave the competitors a perfect “kitchen stadium” then made sure it collapsed around them. And nearly collapsing the competitors themselves in the process.

Food Network ignored CIA’s requests

According to Stephan Hengst, Senior Communications Manager at the college and who oversaw the taping this summer of the program: “It was 100 degrees outside on the day that they taped this episode, with 90% humidity, The Food Network turned off the ventilation hoods in the kitchens for taping. This is something that the CIA made them well-aware that they could not do, yet, their audio engineer went against our requests, and turned them off after all CIA staff had left the kitchen.”

In doing so, the chefs got put into a hell’s kitchen they hadn’t signed up for. “When the battle was over, the kitchen was 132 degrees, and one of the chefs ended up needing to be hospitalized for dehydration,” Hengst informed me. In fact, three more degrees and the sprinklers would have shot on. “We were all lucky that the Ansul system did not go off, as we were only a few degrees away from the 135 it would have taken to trigger the fire retardant system,” he said.

So, thanks to the purposeful behind-the-scenes manipulation by yet another production team on a television reality show, what did we get? Oddly, we did not get the fraud that has been plaguing many a television reality show of late, we got something I think is worse: the entire competition was altered majorly, though not in a way anyone can know exactly how it may have changed the outcome, and it got someone a ride in an ambulance. Sources suggest it was chef Aarón Sanchez though I could not 100% confirm this, there’s enough strong suggestion that I mention the name.

The excessive heat altered the competition

First the food. According to Hengst when it comes to CIA’s kitchen equipment failure “It all comes down to the heat as a result of Food Network turning off the hoods in the first episode. The compressor in the freezer shut down as a result of the blistering heat around it. This caused the temperature to rise.Same with the ice cream machine.” Machines breaking down, food not behaving normally. Here in lies the rub. It’s obvious that recipes and chefs were affected. Viewers can see that themselves watching the final cut that’s broadcasted/ What is nearly impossible to say is to exactly what degree did it affect things? Was it so little as to not have changed the results, or was it more than enough to have caused one or more different changes in judgments? Remember, in NIC the difference of who might have come in first during a challenge gives that chef an edge in the next challenge.

In the end then, we can all agree things and people were not only minorly but majorly affected by the production team’s tampering, but we’ll never know to what extent. It certainly did not make the Culinary Institute of America look good at all. And no one on the show mentioned any of this on the air, brushing it all under the rug. One would have thought they’d redo the challenge. Or mention various handicaps and said they had been taken under consideration during judgement. Or at the very least said something of an apology to the CIA, their host, redeeming an image that they had tarnished. But, nothing. Silence. At least until now when, via this blog and Mr. Hengst, the CIA has explained their side of the story and cleared their name.

Worse than all of this though, and it cannot be overlooked, this is first time I know of that production team shanigans created an environment that sent a contestant to a hospital. At this point, it’s not so long a stretch as it might once have been to ponder when does Paddy Chayefsky’s Howard Beale actually show up on one of these reality shows — all for the sake of good television.

The Brits have been getting stung all year

Ironically, in Britain of late, it’s been the cooking shows there that have gotten the most heat from fuming audiences. Mind you, television in general has been letting them down, but recently it’s the cooks who are feeling the heat.

In July it was Gordon Ramsey’s fish. Here in America, Ramsey is known for his newest show “Kitchen Nightmares” and for “Hell’s Kitchen” which will return in May for it’s fourth season. The controversy centered around a segment in his latest program there, “The F Word” in which Ramsey was shown to go out to catch a fish, and then later came back with one in hand. While he never said he’d caught it, that was the obvious implication and the desired effect the show wanted viewers to believe. It turns out he was given a fish and pretended to catch it.

Then, in the past month, chef Nigella Lawson, a cult-favorite in Britain, has been hit not once, but three times for “fakery”. First, the show opens showing her going into her home, putting her kids to bed then going to “her” kitchen and starting the show. When it was revealed the first part was real and the kitchen part was a studio set, fans went nuts. Since then the show’s been flamed for both showing Nigella on a bus on her way to shopping — it was a rented bus with riders being actors — as well as “her friends” coming over for dinner on the show, some of whom she’s never met.

Personally, I dunno. To me, this is called “television” or the “theater of television”. This doesn’t upset me personally at all. As a child of television (born in the Sixties) this seems normal. Production heads for both Ramsey’s and Lawson’s show have likewise called this “staging”. Now, while not trying to trivialize these things, I have to admit they are to me trivial. Why? None of these in any way impact on the integrity of the television show. It changes nothing. The recipes do not get altered in any way. It’s theater, window-dressing, “staging”. But to others, these are out and out lies and fans are majorly upset.

Now mind you, compared to America, these things are only the latest of a full year of “television lying”, and so they now have more of a zero-tolerance mentality than us in the States. I mean look at the saying “twice bitten twice shy”; no wonder after a dozen different bites, Brits are scrutinizing everything on the boob tube. If it happened here to that degree, we would no doubt be doing the same. (And maybe we should.)

There was the whole thing with the movie and the Queen last year which ended up only two weeks ago with the firing — ahem, “stepping down” — of the head of the BBC1. And there were the two scandals with the popular children’s program “Blue Peter”, one last November when a fake contestant won a major contest and a second over the summer where a contest to name a new puppet character ended up being ignored in favor for the name the staff had come up with.

I even came across in my research this article which details even more “tv fraud” events in the UK then I was initially aware. To put it another way, after thousands of searches and digging, the number of events listed here were so many that even I was very much surprised and taken back.

Fakes, frauds and mere “stagings”

Both the US and the UK get the Bear Gryll’s program. Here it’s known as “Man vs Wild” and is shown on the Discovery Channel. In the UK it’s called “Born Survivor” and shown on Channel 4. It’s also shown in Canada on the Outdoor Life Network. So this particular controversy straddles both sides of the Atlantic. (It may appear in Australia as well.)

Grylls and film crew so far have been cited for the host sleeping in a motel, faking a volcano to make it appear more active, and in one episode a raft made out of leaves and tree limbs and presented as having been constructed by Grylls was made by professionals then given to him right before taping. The Discovery Channel has not dumped the show but has said they’re keeping a closer look this season to make sure things are up and up.

Little wonder then why such comparatively smaller sins as Ramsey’s fish and Lawson’s sets are receiving major flames in England where as here such things would be probably be greeted with cold embers. After all, speaking of the Iron Chef, how long has it been that Wikipedia has been telling of the fake Iron Chef America chairman? Or rather that, to quote the Wikipedia entry: “The chairman is portrayed by martial arts expert Mark Dacascos, who is introduced as the nephew of the original Japanese chairman Takeshi Kaga” and is of no relation. Again, maybe it’s me, but having grown up with television, I would have been shocked if he actually had been the nephew. An actor in a premise? Nope, that just made sense, good back story, nice “cohesion” or inventive bridge between the Japanese Iron Chef show and the American one. It’s television. So this has caused little if any waves in the US. Why? It’s theater, it’s staging. I guess here in America, our tolerance points are set a bit higher.

Writer Brian Cathcart brought up this very point in a July article in the New Statesman where he talks about fake goods and fake television. When talking about a fake building and set on “The Apprentice”, he remarks: “You may already know that, because it was pointed out in the press, and that is why I mention it: we were all told, and nobody seemed to care. This was, in other words, a socially acceptable fake – not the real thing but it looks good, and where’s the harm?” Talking about Grylls’ and Ramsey’s schticks he says “faking in the interest of entertainment is socially acceptable.”

When is it too far, too much?

I agree with part of what Cathcart wrote. Not about what he said regarding Grylls’ show though. Not one bit. To me, when it goes against the premise of the show, alters the entire show or interferes with a show, that is when it is not in any way “socially acceptable”. But you know, we all have different ethical barometers. While the fish and the kitchen set and the guy not really being the Iron Chef’s nephew do not upset me, they do upset other people. And I have no right to say they those people are wrong. That is where their gauges are set. And while I don’t share the same opinion, I must and do respect their opinion.

Let me take a moment to explain my position better if I can. If you take away any of the lesser problems: if Gordon says I didn’t catch this fish; if Nigella says I’m cooking in a studio and if there was no one claiming to be the “chairman’s nephew” would any of these events change their respective shows? Nope. In fact either way, the television program remains the same; the recipes, the judging, it’s the same either way. The overall integrity of the show (to me) is not lost just because a certain segment or a certain part is faked or staged or dressed or done for dramatic flair. None of these small things mentioned in any way “rewrites” the show nor rewrites the ending. Therefore to me, they are acceptable.

But when a guy is supposedly roughing it in the wild and instead he’s roughing it at a Motel Six. Or a competition is hindered in such a way that various recipes being judged go awry and a contestant gets sick enough to go the hospital — then yes, these events do fundamentally and majorly alter the entire show — and in the case of the first episode of “The Next Iron Chef” maybe it even rewrote the ending — so it is at this point, yes, that I get quite angry and cry “Foul!”

With “Man vs Wild”, it was another in a long series of cases of intentional deceit. With “The Next Iron Chef”, the intent to influence or change wasn’t done purposely, but it was done nevertheless — and it was done to make for a better production with absolutely zero regard for its effect on the food, the competition, or the well-being of the people participating. It makes one ask which is worse: fraud and deceit or ineptness and callous disregard. And in both cases the shows were altered and we the viewing audience were, for a time, left none the wiser of these actions. This is much more beyond the fish and kitchen antics, this nonsense by a program’s film crew changed the entire challenge, changed dishes, changed recipes, entire show, incorrectly tarnished the reputation of a culinary institution of education, and severely if temporarily impacted the health and welfare of at least one human being, sending a chef-contestant to the hospital!

In the name of “but it makes for good television” as the supposed justification just where does all the nonsense stop? At what point is the line drawn or does the line stop being crossed? When and how much of any of these so-called reality series can we ever again believe has anything remotely to do with reality?

If Paddy were alive today he’d be saying “Told you so.”

I feel like I wasted half a year in many respects. It all came down to Dale, Casey and Hung. In order, likeable guy, likeable gal, and the number one most disliked person ever to be in a reality series. The Top Chef jury went for Hung.

Obviously Hung would never win a popularity contest. He would also never win “Mr. Congeniality”. This surprises no one. He wasn’t judged on that. Nor was anyone else. It was cooking.

Here’s the problem: Cooking is a culinary art. But who won but a master technician. Hung winning is putting the artist out of the game. The engineer over the architect; the precision over the heart. Pure science.

You see, for anyone who wasn’t watching, all season judge Tom Colicchio had been saying Hung was a brilliant technician, did everything technically, but he never put his heart or soul into his food. Other judges and guest judges echoed these comments, but for Tom it was a refrain.

Then, at the end, bang, Tom votes for and pushed for Hung saying “he found his heart”. Sorry if I’m coughing up all over the screen here but I am. That was a little too convenient. It’s a nice end to the “Wizard of Oz”, but come on, Tom aren’t you trying to justify choosing him?!

Do explain in detail please exactly where did he magically turn the corner on the very last episode with his dishes? What did he do that showed a leap, a personal challenge, something not in his cooking rule book, something unique, something “Hung”. He didn’t. He did nothing different than ever before. He’s probably unable to do so in fact; it’s not in his programming.

I’m sorry I have to be rough on Tom. I like him a lot. Having bought the book he’s best known for and gone maybe a third in to it, I like him even more and feel I know much more about him than from just watching the show. But hey, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Translated: who watches the watchers, or guards the guardians, or in this case judges the judges. If you can dish it out, you better be able to take it. If you make a call, you damn well better be able to explain and or defend it. I see none of that here.

One way or another, Tom was not true to himself, to his own criteria of judging. Either he wasn’t for the entire season and found himself at the end, or he was true all season, and as I said “Hung suddenly has heart” was too convenient a revelation. In short it came down to this. Per Tom. A technically beautiful dish with no heart is not a Top Chef (the view he had all season), or what taste best wins. And I think all season Tom wrestled with this, because for the first time, in the embodiment of Hung he found they were two separate things. It seems in the end it came down to taste, and a well-trained robot preparing everything properly can deliver taste. Rather than admit that though — how could he? — instead Tom proclaimed the tin man got his heart.

This above though only partly illustrates a season of inconsistent judging. Inconsistent with what was said and then how they would continually vote. All season, every judge, every guest chef would all say the same thing to everyone. In a negative way: “You’re playing it safe” which was then usually followed by a disappointed head shake. “You’re not talking enough risks”. Everyone said this to everyone and in nearly every episode and more than once.

But every single time a contestant (foolishly it seems now) tried, they usually got reprimanded — “Just what were you thinking?” and “How could you serve that dish?” and “Did you actually taste it before sending it out?” and “What was going through your mind when this came to you?” — often followed by the infamous “pack your knives” line. What the heck was this? Why constantly, beratingly, bludgeon the contestants with the same mantra every single week about experimenting and then every next judgement time throw it up in their faces like they’re crazy? It makes you want to scream to the contestants: “Ignore them! They’re bipolar!!”

And that was the nail in the coffin for me when in the finale it came down between Hung and Dale (Casey having gone all helter-skelter on herself on the last challenge.) Why? Because here they decided of the last four dishes, two went to Hung, and two went to Dale. Among those that went to Hung was his sixth or eight or tenth dish of duck. Talk about full-out playing it safe. Whereas one of the dishes that went in favor of Dale was something he’d never tried before and worked superbly.

Based on all the judges said for the past long long long four plus months, the winner had to be Dale. That is, based on their own criteria, and their bludgeoning record-looped mantras, Dale should have won. It went to Hung. Why? No idea. I felt like I was the awards ceremony of a hypocrites convention. What was it all for in the end? Why speak out of one side of your mouth and vote the other way Tom, Padme, Ted, Gail???

The silence is deafening. I’m sure this will never be answered to my satisfaction, in fact, never answered at all. Leaving us to sit here and wonder… Why did we spend six months of our lives on this drivel?

At least the contestants for next year have a clear path based on all this. To win next season’s show, be a robot, make no friends, make enemies, become a nuisance, be a totally arrogant selc-righteous, self-centered bastard, cut your meat finely and know your technique. And ignore the judges totally no matter what they say and give them the exact same thing week after week. Do that and you’ll be Top Chef in no time. Oh and if you get sick one week, just have your robot proxy come in and do it for you. No one will notice the difference.

… Well, just because you did, that does not mean you should.

Hey, we all love our television cooks. We really do. I’m addicted for sure watching the various cooking shows out there. There’s never been so much info out there. So many different personalities, cooking styles, cooking shows. It’s definitely a golden age. (Who ever thought there would be a summer cooking movie? And yet there are two out!)

But there is a problem or two. First, we tend to forget they’re human and can make mistakes too — though they rarely ever show it. So we think everything they’re doing is perfect. Especially since they can edit and cut and mix and toss away mistakes and reshoot. Children of television as we are, we are all well aware of the production process, however just as we make the mistake of thinking the cooks are perfect (and not regular people), we also figure since the show got all the way onto the air that it’s perfect and caught everything too.

The second problem is our favorite television personalities are rarely cooking at home. They are on a set. They are in a television production envronment. They have big budgets and tons of supplies. Even the one’s who cook at home, still have a garage or trailer full of dishes, utensils, serving bowls and replacement pots and pans that number in the hundreds. That cannot be said about you and I here in the real world.

So, here’s two big things to be very careful of when trying to learn or emulate your TV cook gurus, the one will mess up your stuff, the second is a biggie, it could mess you up, and seriously. Note: Last thing I want to do is pick on someone, or cause a conflict. But when it comes not only to silly mistakes, but things that could really hurt someone by mistake, I have no chioce to take issue and make folks more aware.

Night of at Thousand Pans: I don’t know how often I’ve seen a television cook grinding the meat bits up at the bottom of a non-stick coated pan with a spoon, or a sharp metal flipper, or metal tongs … Trust me .. don’t do it, just because they did! If you do, you will be buying a new pot or pan very soon. That scratch will eventually expand, you’ll see gunk and possible rust underneath, and also your scratches and digs will multiply quickly and it’s trash can it and replace it time. Thing is, a place like the Food Network no doubt has a miniwarehouse with 200 of every kind and make of pot and pan back there, to replace the damaged one with. You and I don’t.

Blenders from Krypton: Here’s another biggie, one that might not merely cost you in terms of replacement, this could even cause damage to other things in your kitchen and quite possibly yourself. Seems in the olden days cooks (The Frugal Gourmet, Jacque Pepin, Julia Child and the rest) would either use a blender or a food processor. Today, cooks of all kinds are using blenders for items that should only ever go into a food processor. Why?

Technology. You and I have either a glass or plastic Kitchen blender or bar blender, you know the kind you make a smoothy or a milk shake with.. But in the last five or tens years technoogy has created Super Blenders (my name for them), that are workhorses with more powerful engines, are more like food processors, and have thick polycarbonate containers that can easily take high heat and internal whacking.

(No joke, while searching for photos on the Net to use for this article of old and “current” blenders, I came across one that said “after the company representative put golf balls in the blender, and later crushed beer cans in it …” I kid you not.)

So here we are watching a show and the cook starts to pour in nuts and clam shells (slight exaggeration for effect) into their blender and turn it on. Or they decide to use the blender to puree a hot soup. No problem — for them.

The major problem is, if we were to try that very same thing with our blenders … from heat or hard elements inside it, our blenders would either crack or warp on the light side, or the contents would completely smash through the glass or plastic, all over the place, including us.

The Great Disconnect

Are the cooks on the boob tube trying to kill off their audience? (In this case, us.) Hell no. They’re just not thinking. (And btw, I blame the show’s producers as much or more. Either way, there’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m just sadly waiting for the first lawsuit to be announced.)

The bad thing is they rarely even warn us anymore. When these professional blenders first came out, some (not all) of the TV host chefs would say this is powerful and maybe “those of you at home watching” should use your food processor. Unfortunately, it’s been years since I’ve heard anyone say it. Yet, they continue to use these super blenders, and we who wish to emulate them or simply try their recipes (that is what they are there for) are going to be in danger.

So, think, be careful. In this day and age of reality television, both the performers and the viewers can easily forget it’s still not the real real world. And that we can’t always do monkey see, monkey do. They are not always going to warn us or be a good example. And when that happens, we have to know the difference and use our own common sense.

I love and I hate this show sometimes. I’m talking about the current season of “Top Chef” shown on Bravo. Make that shown and shown and reshown and shown again so much on Bravo that it’s beginning to appear the have only one show in their lineup. Enough with reruns of the reruns all week

From what I’m seeing, the judging is all over the place lately. This week, with Tre, I hate to admit it, but they were 100% correct. Did Tre have a bad night, yes. How bad? Three items bad. What about last week? I recall the over-smoked potatoes and something else wrong. That’s two weeks in a row, not one.

What really steamed me was the episode on two or three weeks ago — yes, so steamed that this far afterwards I’m still mad enough to decide to write about it. That was the one where they tricked the contestants into thinking they were having a night out on the town but ended up making late night snacks and serving them out of a truck until dawn.

This time, the judging was simply dreadful. First the judges put the crew altogether in an uncomfortable, psychologically demoralizing stunt with the “night out” turned into “cooking with your best clothes on.” Second and worse, the judges created an environment where the women in high heels had to cook, and unlike the guys couldn’t quite take their shirts off. So you slanted an even contest purposely in a manner that put a greater onus on some contestants than others. Major mistake!

And then because cooks need salt and pepper, here comes the throwing of the salt in the wounds, the judges asked the women what they thought, and both women — rather holding back instead of giving it to them as they deserved — politely told them that working in heels and dresses and deep cut blouses was not very comfortable … then got their words spit back them, mostly by Tom by the way, and if not enough, the judges then used those same words to get rid of one of the women — in other words, the producers and judges behind the show set up a scenario that gave certain contestants had greater strain then others, and of course then offed one of those very constestants that had this unfair bias slanted against them. This was truely the show’s greatest low point so far this season.

Would be nice if the producers and judges would fess up and admit that is what they did, instead of attempt to sweep that one under the rug. Better yet, I’d like to see Ted and Tom dressed in drag with four-inch heels running around the supermaket and then standing in the heels for eight hours serving burgers. Then let’s see if they have the same opinions. Chances are they’d have done full 180s.

Definitely the low point of the season so far.