Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
That's The Way The Cookie Crumbles
I've been watching the lastest addition to the Food Network's lineup of crappy programming. A show called Tough Cookies. Think Jersey Shore meets Cake Boss meets Jon and Kate. I think they have actually come up with the perfect combination of overly scripted, poorly acted, mind numbing stupid. This is a family I couldn't care less about, selling a product that I wouldn't pay a plug nickel for, doing a piss poor job of covering up their phoniness and providing nothing of pedagogical value. Congratulations Food Network, on winning the race to reach the bottom of the barrel before TLC.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
30 Minute Meals
I am not a fan of Rachel Ray, I think I made that clear. Her show, 30 Minute Meals, is an exercise in the ridiculous. I can't stand the show or her. I am, however, a fan of Jamie Oliver for several reasons. And now, if you need ideas for meals in 30 minutes or less, Food Network Canada has Jamie's Meals in Minutes.
This show has everything I like in a show about food, in that it IS a show about food. It is not just a recipe show, but a how-to show featuring food. Oliver's unique presentation style is also fun to watch. You will also find some new ingredients along with the information needed to cook with them. His food is what every family should try to cook for their family: simple, flavourful and attainable.
The Food Network needs more shows like this, perhaps the producer could be recruited to develop Canadian shows for the network.
This show has everything I like in a show about food, in that it IS a show about food. It is not just a recipe show, but a how-to show featuring food. Oliver's unique presentation style is also fun to watch. You will also find some new ingredients along with the information needed to cook with them. His food is what every family should try to cook for their family: simple, flavourful and attainable.
The Food Network needs more shows like this, perhaps the producer could be recruited to develop Canadian shows for the network.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Bourdain Has No Reservations About Speaking His Mind
I for one agree with Anthony Bourdain's Celebrity Chef Smackdown! but I also think he does not go far enough. When the food network first premiered there were a number of excellent shows that taught first and entertained second. They were hosted by accomplished chefs, sommeliers and food critics. Some even featured butchers, fish mongers and grocers even farmers explaining the latest trends in food and eating. There were shows about wine, vegetarianism, home economics and food news. I seldom changed the channel. But, the last 8 years or so has seen the network devolve into a reality based network where we are supposed to believe that the overly scripted confrontations are typical "real life dramas" (see Top Chef) and that Rachel Ray and Paula Deen are the custodians of American cuisine. Pffft!
If you want an idea of the idiocy that has become the Food Network and Rachel Ray look no further than here (I urge you to read the comments, they are by far the most entertainment the Food Network has provided in a long time). But, in the spirit of the best Iron Chef battle, I give you a Paula Deen recipe that rivals Ray's. Has cooking in North America sunk to the level that the network for food has to post recipes for cooking slices of bacon and warming peas?! But what Bourdain misses in his smackdown was any mention of what is probably the worst show on Food Network, Outrageous Food. This show is nothing more than a celebration of the worst aspects of American consumerism. This homage to gluttony and obesity looks at the food trend of over indulgence and celebrates the act of culinary masturbation.
There is nothing positive to be taken away from Outrageous Food in terms of food culture, it is strictly the celebration of a pleasurable act that tv censors will not cut. In fact, all of the shows on Food Network are a microcosm of America's pornographic love affair with food. America, through the Food Network, have simply replaced gluttony for lust in their entertainment - I guess explaining to their kids why a grown man is trying to stuff a 21/2 pound burrito into his stomach is less awkward than explaining the act of making love.
If you think the comparison to pornography is hyperbole I suggest you watch this. Bourdain is a genius when he is holding up a mirror to his own trade. He is right, of course, producers and directors know exactly what buttons to press when it comes to filming and presenting shows about food, his show included. Let me say, there is nothing wrong in experiencing pleasure during this life - it is after all a short one and you only go around once, but I really don't need to see others indulging. And when you consider the consequences of the ever rising costs of food around the globe does it seem justified to be celebrating the availability of food we in the west experience today? Shouldn't some sort of moderation be practiced? Or, do we really need shows that portray the extravagant every week? In my view, if food is sex, I would prefer the shows that were sex education rather than simple porn.
I will grant you that Bourdain himself seems like a walking contradiction, but at least he admits he is and he has never claimed to be a great chef. He knows he is playing a game that so far he is winning at and is going to run the table for what it is worth. But from his honest candour has come some of the best insights into the culinary world and his No Reservations show has opened our eyes in the west to how poor people are able to make the greatest of feasts out of the simplest ingredients in life. In My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals, Bourdain points out the irony that the more accomplished a chef is at elevating cuisine the more they personally long for the simpler foods of their childhood.
Too many of the hosts on Food Network seem to think that elevating cuisine is adding gourmet ingredients to simple meals. Good shows about food are not about following a recipe or hiding bad food under gourmet ingredients or 5 pounds of butter and lard, they are about respecting the simple ingredients and turning them into something that says something about yourself and the culture you were raised in. If cooking is supposed to say something about culture then the Food Network is saying" we have none".
If you want an idea of the idiocy that has become the Food Network and Rachel Ray look no further than here (I urge you to read the comments, they are by far the most entertainment the Food Network has provided in a long time). But, in the spirit of the best Iron Chef battle, I give you a Paula Deen recipe that rivals Ray's. Has cooking in North America sunk to the level that the network for food has to post recipes for cooking slices of bacon and warming peas?! But what Bourdain misses in his smackdown was any mention of what is probably the worst show on Food Network, Outrageous Food. This show is nothing more than a celebration of the worst aspects of American consumerism. This homage to gluttony and obesity looks at the food trend of over indulgence and celebrates the act of culinary masturbation.
There is nothing positive to be taken away from Outrageous Food in terms of food culture, it is strictly the celebration of a pleasurable act that tv censors will not cut. In fact, all of the shows on Food Network are a microcosm of America's pornographic love affair with food. America, through the Food Network, have simply replaced gluttony for lust in their entertainment - I guess explaining to their kids why a grown man is trying to stuff a 21/2 pound burrito into his stomach is less awkward than explaining the act of making love.
If you think the comparison to pornography is hyperbole I suggest you watch this. Bourdain is a genius when he is holding up a mirror to his own trade. He is right, of course, producers and directors know exactly what buttons to press when it comes to filming and presenting shows about food, his show included. Let me say, there is nothing wrong in experiencing pleasure during this life - it is after all a short one and you only go around once, but I really don't need to see others indulging. And when you consider the consequences of the ever rising costs of food around the globe does it seem justified to be celebrating the availability of food we in the west experience today? Shouldn't some sort of moderation be practiced? Or, do we really need shows that portray the extravagant every week? In my view, if food is sex, I would prefer the shows that were sex education rather than simple porn.
I will grant you that Bourdain himself seems like a walking contradiction, but at least he admits he is and he has never claimed to be a great chef. He knows he is playing a game that so far he is winning at and is going to run the table for what it is worth. But from his honest candour has come some of the best insights into the culinary world and his No Reservations show has opened our eyes in the west to how poor people are able to make the greatest of feasts out of the simplest ingredients in life. In My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals, Bourdain points out the irony that the more accomplished a chef is at elevating cuisine the more they personally long for the simpler foods of their childhood.
Too many of the hosts on Food Network seem to think that elevating cuisine is adding gourmet ingredients to simple meals. Good shows about food are not about following a recipe or hiding bad food under gourmet ingredients or 5 pounds of butter and lard, they are about respecting the simple ingredients and turning them into something that says something about yourself and the culture you were raised in. If cooking is supposed to say something about culture then the Food Network is saying" we have none".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)