The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: AugustWest on February 08, 2007, 10:26:26 pm
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You rock, Tony! (http://blog.ruhlman.com/2007/02/guest_blogging_.html)
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...like a great, toothless lion, fouling his cage, he hangs on--and on...
For this little pearl ('mongst others): LOVING IT.
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He hit the nail on the head with Rachael Ray, Sandra Lee, and especially this all-too common ridiculousness:
Have her take a few lonely, awkward stabs at the plate, then feign enjoyment with appropriately orgasmic eye-closing and moaning.
But aside from that, I still enjoy watching the Food Network - even kitsch-personified, Marc Sommers. I guess he just brings me back to my Double Dare-watching youth.
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Does anyone else look at Giada and think "her head would look proportional... and she'd be mildly attractive... if she could just manage to weigh more than seventy pounds?"
I do not accept that a woman could be that painfully thin without some sort of wasting disease or eating disorder.
I'm sure I've discussed my feelings on Rachel Ray, that I had a large crush on her before she started dressing and make-upping like... an upper-middle-class Italian woman from the East Coast who believes that she can evade aging by wearing too much make-up and dressing like a whore and frosting her hair and stuff.
Man, I had a crush on her when she was the ditzy girl next door.
Now she's become... the mom of the rich kids I knew in college, trying to pretend they're their daughters' older sisters. And, like, ick.
As for Sandra Lee... it must be weird to be the cameraman on that show, when your entire job is about making sure that her cleavage is at the centre of every shot. Dude probably occasionally thinks about... using a different lens or a steady cam or some interesting tracking shot and then he realizes...
His only job is to keep her cleavage in focus. And then he spins the revolver again and weeps to find himself alive.
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I don't know Giada or Sandra Lee. Are they one of the ones in the recent Food Network commercial where she pretends to drive a convertable directly at the camera while smiling a creepy and unnerving smile that's completely rectangular to totally unnatural?
I just don't get why Rachel Ray refuses to have any beverages or leave tips of $40 a Day and why her recipes never seem to include things like "2 Tbs Olive Oil" and instead talk about this vague concept of "turns around the pan." And heaven forbid she acknowlege that regular olive oil has uses.
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Creepy Convertable Girl would be Giada.
Some of the food she makes is kinda interesting but from some angles she looks like a crazed praying mantis.
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This is one of those blog posts I'm not sure if I should be offended by. After all, I'm way closer to the "Cheeto-covered crapulence" level of food production/consumption than I am anywhere else, and his rant about Throwdown kind of seems to miss the point, which is that Bobby by and large doesn't know how to cook the things that his competitors do. (I'm not going to argue that the show is any good, but it's not bad for those reasons.) On the other hand -- yeah, I'd rather watch people who are good at cooking in a way I'm not, as opposed to someone whose function is apparently to make me feel good about myself and be unnervingly pseudo-attractive. Cooking for Frat Boys ahoy!
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Now she's become... the mom of the rich kids I knew in college, trying to pretend they're their daughters' older sisters. And, like, ick.
Now, I've never watched an episode of her show, but what ain't hot about that? From all I can tell, she still looks good.
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Clearly, you've never seen the horrific denial of reality that is a gaggle of mid-forties bleached tucked faked-tan surgified purgified prescription-stoned Long Island hausfraus at a Syracuse University Parents' Weekend.
Ain't nothin' hot about it.
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yeah, dude, it is terrifying.
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Oh man, someone said what I've been thinking all this time... thank god someone said it. The state of food just breaks my heart these days--people who have no idea what they're putting into their mouths but they know all the right words to say.
Cooking, for me, is prayer. It's meditation. I grew up in the kitchen and food for me is a way to commune with the divine. Maybe I sound like a nutjob but I don't care. I don't even watch the FN because it distresses me on a deep visceral level.
People make fun of me when I get transcendental about what I'm eating: "When you eat a steak, Muse, you not only can taste the grass the cow ate, but also the bee shit on it, and what kind of flower the bee ate from."
Well of course. That's the whole effing point.
The FN makes me very upset. All these personalities, they've sold their souls to the devil. And the frosted-tip tucked faked tan whatever ladies just eat it all up. It's disgusting. You people have no idea what you're experiencing! You don't even know what foie gras means. To you it's just tasty liver! You don't get it, and you never will. You can talk the talk, but if someone asks you to bone a chicken or use a duck press, you freak out. fuck*ng Philistines.
Nobody knows how to do real food anymore. REAL food.
I've stopped trying.
*sigh*
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I am not looking up "duck press"... I will be happier just imagining what it is.
OK, I was right. it -is- what it sounds like, people. Gross.
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lol.
Okay, gross, sure. But most food is. I mean, foie gras? Have you ever made your own? Groooooosssss. Pulling veins out of a diseased raw liver=ewww. But that's the whole point. Yeah, a duck press is icky: you squish a duck. But it's a huge part of culinary history/tradition. And IMO 3/4 of the point of food is that visceral interaction. I'm not going to go into it because you'll likely consider me too nutty even for this bunch. But those people who want good food but don't want to get their hands dirty? Fie on them!
I have a busy life; full time job and a part time job on top of it; unemployed husband, volunteer commitments; a lot that gets in the way of the "ideal" food experience on a regular basis. So do I eat stuff out of cans and boxes, do I take shortcuts when I need to? Sure. I'd be stupid not to.
But to claim that that's "real" food? No way in hell.
Maybe I'm kind of a Nazi about it, but IMO unless you obtain it yourself, or are at maximum three steps removed from obtaining it yourself, and doing all the prep (at least once, since in a professional kitchen you have minions to do the prep for you) yourself, and don't cook it unless it's in season, you're not really cooking. You're just heating nutrient paste at that point.
But again, cooking is pretty much a religion for me, so I realize that compared to the normal population I'm kind of extreme and pretty unrealistic.
Calming down now.
(cooking is a big passion for me, in case you can't tell) :)
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DO NOT TALK BAD ABOUT GIADA! SHE IS TEH HOT!
Also, kudos to Bourdain for giving props to AB.
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good lord-- i wouldn't even -eat- foie gras. no way in hell.
the idea that some food is not Real food is bizarre. Did you mean that?
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Well I meant it insofar as food is (for lack of a better word) "religion" for me. Do I eat mac and cheese out of a box? Sure. Do I consider it "beneath" me to do so? not really. I'm still getting nutrients and satisfying the hungry feeling. But it's not the same for me as when I go to the farmer's market and get locally-grown organic cheese, and make my own pasta, and do it all from scratch myself. To me that seems more satisfying on a physical and spiritual/emotional level, and is therefore more "real."
Understand, I'm coming at this from the premise that self-nourishment can be a spiritual activity, which is not a viewpoint shared by most of the population. So right there I know my perspective is skewed. I view food, and the preparation of it (from birth of the animal/veggie/fruit to plate) as art, and as such have a high standard of quality for my expectation of it. This is tempered by the fact that I understand the reality of the world we live in, and that it's a global economy and that expediency and market forces have an effect on peoples' food choices. This is what prevents me from being a total food Nazi, and enables me to participate in the "mac and cheese out of a box culture" as it were without too much cognitive dissonance. It just means I don't settle for that as my relationship to food.
God, I sound like a total snob. That's so not my intention. It's hard to explain.
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There are shows on FN other than Good Eats?
I tried watching Iron Chef America back when it was a 4 episode special and it just wasn't good. AB could not handle a one-man booth and the host kept saying Alton in a weird way.
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But to claim that that's "real" food? No way in hell.
Can'd, for being a fellow food nazi. It's the only way to be. My brother and I were discussing just the other evening (he's a total foodie as well, and another Bourdain fan - I just passed him all of No Reservations as they refuse to show it over here) that while we know vegetarians who stopped eating meat because they don't like bad, processed meat, we stopped eating bad, processed meat for that reason. That said, I wouldn't eat mac and cheese out of an anything! There are... literally only three things I use from a can - the best brand of tinned chopped tomatoes I can find, for sauce mostly, chick peas and other beans that will cope with it, and Confit de Canard, which may as well not be considered canned!
I am still proud of the fact I have never eaten a McDonald's or Burger King 'burger' for instance, as they smell so foul, and not in the way a durian fruit does or something. There's no promise of a treat lying behind that smell of death and sewerage.
Maybe I'm predisposed to not mind eating the 'icky' stuff, having grown up with haggis as my national dish...
Lunch today - fresh bread, roasted eggplant, slathered in olive oil and good salt, with a quick garlic yoghurt thrown together. 20 minutes work...
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Lunch today - fresh bread, roasted eggplant, slathered in olive oil and good salt, with a quick garlic yoghurt thrown together. 20 minutes work...
Can'd for good nutrition.
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Rachel Ray reminds me of the sort of girl who was a highschool cheerleader because she actually liked football, then she married the quarterback, and now they just sit there and swear at the t.v. playing clips of games they've already seen. And their lives are empty. They're just so empty. I think in all honest that Rachel Ray just wants to make buffalo wings and let her body go. That is what I think.
Also, I no longer get the Food network, which is for the best, because Iron Chef always came on at Midnight, and I kept staying up and being so fuck*ng tired the next day, but damn if I didn't know how to make mushroom sorbet.
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Jeez. Last night (Thursday) the missus and I made a rack of lamb and carrot-pea risotto for dinner, and shared a bottle of Shiraz while and after we ate. We even used the special Italian carnaroli rice, which is perfect for risotto.
In our defense, the peas were frozen and the shiraz was Two Buck Chuck.
I have a hard time watching Alton, because he skips steps in some shows that he insists you never skip in other shows. Consistency should be required. As for the rest, Sandra Lee can die masturbating with a bazooka for all I care, and take out the whole Deen family with her. Rachael Ray needs to be disappeared, and Giada can teach me a recipe whenever she wants. I'm just glad Michael Chiarello isn't on Food Network, as then I would have to gouge out my eyes with a length of coaxial cable. Emeril needs to hang it up: I know how to melt down a chocolate bar and dip a pretzel in it, thanks. Bobby should calm down and take a lesson from Jamie Oliver: film a season or two, then drop it, go away for a couple years, and come back with a new show. I don't need three hours a day of Bobby Flay. Finally, GOD am I glad The Best Of is only on while I'm working. Jill Cordes and Mark Whatshisfuck can go fuck themselves into a coma. Jesus they're awful.
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Finally, GOD am I glad The Best Of is only on while I'm working. Jill Cordes and Mark Whatshisfuck can go fuck themselves into a coma. Jesus they're awful.
They're kind of lame, sure, but that show isn't so much about them. They're the annoyingly perky hosts, sure, but to a fair degree they stay out of the way and show the restaurants or what have you that they're covering. It's nowhere near as personality-driven as much of Food Network's other fare.
I like that George Duran's show, somewhat in spite of myself. Goofy as hell, but enjoyable.
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Bobby Flay just screams to me:
"I am the sort of douchebag who thinks that I am street because I am from the NYC area, never mind that I am from the North Fork of Long Island or whatever and made more on tips as a caddy during my high school summers than you do in your adult job! I am a tough douchebag! I am from the mean streets of Suffolk County, represent!"
Fratty dipshit.
Alton, at least, is just a full-on unabashed nerdlinger. I identify with nerdlingers. I am a nerdlinger.
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Alton, at least, is just a full-on unabashed nerdlinger. I identify with nerdlingers. I am a nerdlinger.
That's the thing. While he may not be the best cook out there, and an awful lot of the stuff he makes I either make already, or feel is beneath my palette (I need homemade corndogs about as much as I need gastro-enteritis, or bought corndogs - what next? How to homecook pancake-wrapped sausages on a stick!?), he will actually teach you some really interesting shit about food. Even when making the mundane stuff. I just dig learning shit I guess.
I gave up downloading Good Eats after a while though. The effort wasn't quite worth the payoff, and I had a lot of other stuff to grab. I probably caught the first couple of seasons or so at any rate.
I havent seen an awful lot of the other people that are spoken of. I really just trust Bourdain's word for it, and now you guys. Rachel Ray sounds fuck*ng awful for sure. Emeril is obviously unavoidable, and well there are vast sections of Futurama I'd be lost through without knowing him. Flay and the likes also we just never got over here.
We had a Mario Batali series on over here recently. While I was mostly underwhelmed by what he made on it, I wasn't really paying attention as it was on at the wrong time, and having seen the No Reservations featuring Salumi (oh man, what I'd give to have that in my lunch repertoire) I wouldn't mind seeing some more to possibly redress my judgement.
Back in the day I used to dig watching Jacques Pepin's show, and wonder where shows of that quality have disappeared to...
As for the shows we do get... Jamie Oliver I have some real issues with, but by and large he cooks some good looking food on his shows. I could do with less of his lifestyle and tongue mind you, and his Italian series seemed a bit pompous (some Essex lad going to Italy to show them how to cook and all). But he's one of the best TV cooks we've had in a long time, if not ever. There have been a couple of others - the bikers one of late has been quite interesting, the Two Fat Ladies, while bonkers, can be quite good.
One of the best things on at the moment is the new version of Masterchef, since after the first half of the first season John Torrode stopped seeming objectionable, and has actually been giving people really good advice on how to get better, and we've seen some interesting cooks going through it. Oh, and I can't forget Rick Stein, who will wax lyrical about good, fresh, honest local produce, and cooks some really good food (as well as having the best sidekick in all of food TV). Nick Nairn and Paul Rankin used to do good TV cookery (to fulfill the Celtic contingent), but neither of them have done anything on TV in a long time, though I was pleased to see Rankin show up on No Reservations this season.
Unfortunately, we have also spawned the evil trio! Ainsley Harriett is straightforwardly one of the most irritating men on the planet, and a dire cook, if you can call him a cook. Anthony Worrell Thompson is a man who claims to be a great chef, and yet will cut the fat off a piece of lamb, apparently thinking it will make it better... He also prepared 'good old British faggots' when competing on the Great British Menu to cook for the Queen's birthday. I think he was the only chef there (all professionals) to actually burn his food, the fuck*ng jackass. You couldn't pay me to patronise one of his 'grillhouses'. And then there's Gary Rhodes. The chef with no tastebuds. Literally! I can't remember why, but he basically has a very limited sense of taste, and it shows. He will make a wild mushroom risotto, then top it with black pudding, bacon bits, parmigiano, herbs, and will likely not stop there. He just does not know when to stop. And, the three of them now appear alongside each other in one of the most irritating washing-up liquid adverts ever, just to write them all off.
Most of our UKTV channel is just filled with Rhodes, Worrell Thompson, Harriett and garbage 'food magazine' shows that treat you like a child (reviewing which supermarket does the best frozen ham and pineapple pizza, for those nights when you don't have time to cook... 'cause making some dough on the weekend, sticking it in the fridge and spending the extra couple of minutes preparing it yourself is just too much effort for good food?). And the rest is just repeats of the good shows, if you're lucky.
And while I have respect for Ramsay as a chef, and his cohorts (there was a good program featuring him and Marcus Waring assisting Angela Hartnett when she got the job at the Connaught), I don't rate any of the shows he does, and he's not a good presenter.
Anyway, enough ranting... If it isn't apparent, food may have become my second biggest vice, after music (and pot).
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The only thing that bothers me about Mario Batali is that he isn't out of the closet.
I don't know why this bothers me so much, I am usually supportive of gay folk who feel the need to stay in for their careers or families or whatever... as a straight man, I probably have no right to judge him for that but... he's just SO gay. SO VERY GAY. Gayer than Tom Cruise mounting Vin Diesel in a field of wild flowers. He once had Michael Stipe in his audience, for God's sake!
He's a chef! A television chef! He can totally admit he is gay.
If the little bald troll dude with the DYI show can admit he is gay and have his career flourish, Mario can admit he is gay.
I don't know why it bothers me so much. But it does.
Also: Emeril without audience, in his "essence" show? I like well enough to watch for a half hour.
It is Overthetop Live Audience Emeril that is Terrible.
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That's the thing. While he may not be the best cook out there, and an awful lot of the stuff he makes I either make already, or feel is beneath my palette (I need homemade corndogs about as much as I need gastro-enteritis, or bought corndogs - what next? How to homecook pancake-wrapped sausages on a stick!?), he will actually teach you some really interesting shit about food. Even when making the mundane stuff. I just dig learning shit I guess.
I gave up downloading Good Eats after a while though. The effort wasn't quite worth the payoff, and I had a lot of other stuff to grab. I probably caught the first couple of seasons or so at any rate.
To be fair the idea behind Good Eats is to give regular people a jumping off point for ingredients that they might not otherwise try. It more bugs me when he goes super home-made. "Here's how to make pocket pies (a convenience food) with dough you made yourself. I could tell you what kind of store-bought dough to use and how to use it, but that would actually help you in real life."
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Slink, I think I love you. And the only way I can express it is with a can.
I think what bugs me so much about the FN and the "bobbleheads" that populate it (and the bobblehead groupies of the bobbleheads that populate it), is that they feel this need to talk talk talk about the food like it's something mystical.
Okay okay so I just got done going on and on about how food is spiritual for me, and it is. So you're probably thinking that, given that, the above is a contradiction. But it's not.
If I start from the premise that food is a spiritual thing; that the cultivation and preparation and consumption of it is spiritually fulfilling, then we can operate on somewhat of a religious analogy. This would make the "bobbleheads" and their fans, in my worldview, kind of like Jehovah's Witnesses or Televangelists:
*knock knock*
"Hello! Let me tell you about roast rack of Sisteron lamb studded with rosemary and garlic! Let me tell you the Good News!"
*slam*
You know, it just bugs me. Like these people are Prometheus, uplifting the unwashed masses from their Big Macs with totally gimmicky stuff.
It's just so... commercial, and fake. I dunno; when the people who claim to get it act like they don't get it, I have real beef with that.
I wish I could be more articulate about this.
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To be fair the idea behind Good Eats is to give regular people a jumping off point for ingredients that they might not otherwise try. It more bugs me when he goes super home-made.
I guess it comes from having a bread maker, although I'm tempted to stop using it for mixing certain dough too (that's right, I'm getting so bad I'm considering trying 24hr dough), but the only dough I don't buy made is puff pastry, what with it being a total bitch and all. I don't even bake bread in the maker, but with about 5 minutes work I can have a wad of pizza or pitta bread dough. That said, I don't know of anywhere you can buy these doughs pre-made but unbaked. Store bought pittas here are like cardboard, and ready made pizza bases are even worse!
And damn, Muse, but you pretty much just summed up my problem with pretty much all those chefs I just said I hate. Worrall Thompson, Harriett and Rhodes wax lyrical about how incredible their food is (not helped by how annoying each of them are in their delivery of a fuck*ng sentence, Harriett with his 'percy pepper and suzy salt' ohmygodithinkmybrainjusthaemmorhaged!), and how important ingredients and flavour combinations are, almost as a good chef would, and then they go on to obliterate whatever they start out with.
From the sound of it I am so very glad we don't get Rachel Ray here, as she sounds like the Pat Robertson of food!
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From the sound of it I am so very glad we don't get Rachel Ray here, as she sounds like the Pat Robertson of food!
She is more... the Susanne Sommers of food.
Cute and perky when we first met her, more and more annoying and plastic as she became more and more of a weird semi-liminal cultural phenominamamana... until you eventually just wanna strangle her bleached blonde ass with the goddamned Thighmaster.
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It more bugs me when he goes super home-made. "Here's how to make pocket pies (a convenience food) with dough you made yourself.
Sometimes lately I think Alton has lost his mind. One day he will be telling you how to assemble Pop-Tarts from their constituent molecules, and then next day he will (as I have ranted about previously) make eclair pastry from scratch and fill it with instant vanilla pudding.
I mean sure, in real life, one day I will make pasta from scratch and the next day I will eat a frozen pizza. But in a work of art like a TV show, I think you have to choose a point of view and stick with it, you know?
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Sometimes lately I think Alton has lost his mind. One day he will be telling you how to assemble Pop-Tarts from their constituent molecules, and then next day he will (as I have ranted about previously) make eclair pastry from scratch and fill it with instant vanilla pudding.
I mean sure, in real life, one day I will make pasta from scratch and the next day I will eat a frozen pizza. But in a work of art like a TV show, I think you have to choose a point of view and stick with it, you know?
He could have at least said he was filling it with "Good Eats pudding" as he often does with marinara sauce. Or just acknowledge the hipocracy like he does when he uses store-bought croutons.
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Sometimes lately I think Alton has lost his mind. One day he will be telling you how to assemble Pop-Tarts from their constituent molecules, and then next day he will (as I have ranted about previously) make eclair pastry from scratch and fill it with instant vanilla pudding.
I mean sure, in real life, one day I will make pasta from scratch and the next day I will eat a frozen pizza. But in a work of art like a TV show, I think you have to choose a point of view and stick with it, you know?
He could have at least said he was filling it with "Good Eats pudding" as he often does with marinara sauce. Or just acknowledge the hipocracy like he does when he uses store-bought croutons.
I have a hard time watching Alton, because he skips steps in some shows that he insists you never skip in other shows. Consistency should be required.
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I am thinking of y'all (http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,3428.msg82878.html), because I made a truly horrendous dish and am enjoying it as we speak--
step 1: boil water
step 2: put Ramen noodles into water
3: boil for 3 minutes
4: add way too much vinegar (http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=02092007), oh my GOD this is too much vinegar, shit, "dude what the fuck is that, it smells like vinegar" It's fuck*ng ramen, dude! I know I put too much, shit!
5: add too much soy sauce to compensate
6: try it, make funny faces
7: add more water
8: try to choke it down. try to convince people to sample it.
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I think noodles would be a hindrance to your man-douche, sweetie.
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For that matter, soy sauce would probably also be detrimental as a man-douche.
All kindsa salts and phyto-estrogens in there to salt small wounds and shrink the junk, respectively.
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If it's any comfort, inev, I once added seasoning salt and bacon bits to desperately over-bland instant soba, and it Did Not Work. Oh, good heaven did it not work. That was one of those days that made me think I should have just made a Childhood Sandwich and called it a day.
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what bothers me the most is that I've successfully combined these things half a dozen times. I just wayyy overdid the vinegar this time.
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I'm just glad Michael Chiarello isn't on Food Network, as then I would have to gouge out my eyes with a length of coaxial cable.
Perhaps you would care for a few feet of RG6? (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_mo/0,1976,FOOD_14518,00.html)
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oh my christ
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Watching some Food Network this morning, I've noticed some things.
1.) The Barefoot Contessa does not seem to know any straight men. That is fine and all but... like... not even one straight dude, ever? She doesn't even seem to hang out with ladies of any persuasion very often, either. It's like... just her and a gaggle of gay fellows. It's weird.
2.) The way Giada says "spaghetti" makes me wanna smack her, even though I was raised to not hit anyone, let alone a lady who weighs fifty-three pounds. "Spa-GHHHHHHHETTTTT-ee!" "MOHT-zeeeeer-ELL-a!" Fah-uck-a you, lady.
Jesus, we get it. You are ethnically Italian. We understand. You don't have to completely overpronounce every goddamned Italian word to remind us. You don't have to be like that one reporter on the news who has a Michigan accent except when he says his own ethnic last name and overpronounces the shit out of it.
"This is Bill Herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-NAND-ehz with Channel Seven news, back to you."
3.) Everything Rachel Ray says is a double entendre. EVERYTHING.
4.) Paula Deen seems to have taken Santa Clause as her second husband. Why, Santa, why?
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http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1231 (http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1231)
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Spectacular!
The thing is, if anyone on FN would be a vampire hunter, it would totally be Tony Bourdain. That would so rock.
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It's very popular to hate the cooks on the food network, apparently.
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Well, technically Bourdain's show's on the Travel Channel...