Epic Portions

Tag: food network

  • Chopped

    The new season of Chopped debuts on Food Network next week, and if you haven’t seen this culinary competition before, despite its short comings it is fine entertainment on most nights. The premise of the show is intriguing; hosted by uber-nerd Ted Allen, Chopped has four chefs competing for $10,000 by having what is in essence a cook-off in three rounds, appetizer, entrée and dessert. The contestants are usually pretty skilled and handle themselves well. Occasionally one of the typical emotional basket cases that seem to populate reality TV sneaks in, but overall I have been impressed with the caliber of the contestants. This is mostly because the trick of the show is that in each round a basket is presented with ingredients that must be used in the dish. This can be great fun, watching some obsessive-compulsive chef who is used to running a restaurant try to make an appetizer out of unsweetened chocolate, jumbo prawns, and clamato never loses its appeal.

    What makes Chopped annoying is the judges. Each one tends to be overly dramatic in their criticism, and their outrage is usually disproportionate to the crime. They have the same level of anger towards someone who double dips their finger in the sauce or serves a dangerously undercooked turkey dish as they do the person who fails to coherently make gummy bear encrusted chicken. A typical comment will be something like this: “I would be ashamed to serve this gummy bear encrusted chicken if it were my restaurant.” You don’t say. Perhaps you should get up and try your hand at it. I’ve seen Aaron Sanchez on Chefs vs. City. He seems to spend half the show running around, I don’t seem to recall him being presented with a basket containing starfruit, ostrich, and instant grits and being forced to make something delicious.

    One of the worst of the judges is Alex Guarnaschelli. Below is a photo:

    While I’m certain that in life Ms. Guarnaschelli is a fine human being, she comes across particularly shrill. You would think she would have a word with the editors and ask that they not make her look like a complete bitch every show. The funniest part about this is that now Ms. Guarnaschelli has her own show, Alex’s Day Off. I have a great idea for an episode, someone should drop off a basket containing plantains, frozen scallops and Cheese-Its and then berate her for coming up with a less than perfect dish.

    Will the annoying judges be toned down next season? Who knows, odds are Food Network will find a way to botch it even more, or have some stupid event where Bobby Flay takes on pastry chefs and the basket coincidentally contains ancho chilies, Kobe beef and fingerling potatoes. I will still check out the newest episodes and see if Chopped remains worthwhile viewing. I sure hope so, Food Network is becoming unwatchable, and Chopped is hanging under the cleaver itself.

  • I Drew Guy Fieri in Paint

    guyfieri

  • Anthony Bourdain on Sandra Lee

    I love Anthony Bourdain.  I’ve read all of his books, watch No Reservations religiously, and subscribe to the majority of his culinary opinions and ideals.  I am an Anthony Bourdain slappy.  If I was a house wife, Rachel Ray would be my Anthony Bourdain.  His blog is always a source of hilarity and sarcastic viewpoints.  His most recent entry documents a run in he had with Sandra Lee at the Julia & Julia premier.  Read on.

    SandraLee
    Taken from http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/……

    ” Thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes…black eyes…like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at you, doesn’t seem to be livin’ ..until he bites you–and those black eyes roll over white, and then you hear that terrible high pitched screamin’…the ocean turns red…”

    -Robert Shaw (as Quint) in Jaws

    So, I get invited to a movie premier. This doesn’t happen a lot and it’s for Julie/Julia, and I happen to be very sentimental on the subject of Julia Child . The book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” has a sort of totemic place in my personal history–as it does, I’m sure, for millions of others. I am also a big Stanley Tucci fan. He directed and co-starred in the single best live action film on the restaurant business (Big Night) and there was certainly no reason to believe that Meryl Streep couldn’t “do” Julia. ( Of course she can.) But that’s not the point of this tale.The next morning, I’m still trying to reconstruct the exact progression, the details, like trying to remember the license plate of the truck that hit me. Only this wasn’t any normal truck. This was far more terrifying and traumatic an event than being smashed by the grill of a Peterbilt, pulled up into the wheel well, dragged for a while, only to have my shredded remnants left by the side of the road, wondering, in my last moments of consciousness, “What the hell happened?” I’m pretty sure, judging by the vestigial ectoplasm on my jacket that I was sideswiped by pure evil.

    I’m standing there by the boeuf bourgignonne station, sucking down martinis with my wife (they drink a LOT of martinis in the movie), minding my own business, having an innocent chat with some friends, when I notice someone has their hand on me. An icy, tendril of fear runs down my spine. I turn and find myself looking straight into the deceptively attractive and reasonable looking face of Sandra Lee.  To make matters worse–and more…..uncomfortable, she’s standing next to her boyfriend, Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General of the State of New York.

    Now, I’ve said some unkind things over the years about Sandra. Far too many and far too terrible things to ever apologize for. Plus, I pretty much meant every word. Once you’ve seen Sandra making Kwanzaa Cake on YouTube, there’s no backing down . My head is reeling with the thought that one phone call from Cuomo and my last twenty years of tax returns are getting audited . I’m paralyzed, wondering what the statute of limitations is on various things I may or may not have done twenty years ago. Sandra is talking. I know this cause her lips are moving and she’s saying–overtly anyway, nice things. Like “You’re a very naughty man,” and she’s chatting amiably with my wife. But one hand is picking over me like the meat buyer at Peter Luger selecting a rib section–like some demonic bird of prey is poking and prodding, deciding where the weakest, most tender point of entry is, giving, as I recall, a point by point review of her investigations to my wife–who ordinarily, I have to say, would have been across the table with a tomahawk chop elbow to the top of the skull by now, but who, like me, sits mesmerized and grinning insanely, frozen by the ..bizarrenessof the moment which seems to go on forever as Sandra’s hand wanders upward, tugs an ear lobe and asks if my ears are red yet. (They were.) Having had her way with me, she leaves the emptied husk of my carcass teetering at the table and moves on.

    I felt like the victim of a drive-by shooting. “What just..happened?” I said with a weak, trembly voice. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the quiet but very thorough disembowelment that had just occurred. Nothing. It had looked, to anyone who’d care to notice, like any other cocktail party conversation–but I knew better. I had looked into those eyes. I’d seen. Oh, she was smiling all right, but I’m pretty damn sure you could have dragged a rusty butterknife across my carotid artery right there at the table and her expression would not have changed, maybe only the eyes, they’d roll over white as I geysered onto the chafing dishes.

    As we say on the show all the time, “What have we learned today?”

    I learned that were a nuclear weapon to fall on New York, I’m pretty sure that if no one else, Sandra Lee would survive to clamber out of the rubble. That if it came down to a fight over the last can of food, she would surely emerge the victor.

    I learned that I am truly and deeply afraid of her. And I’m pretty sure she’s a Democrat.