Had it with the Food Channel...

[RICHARD]

I keep seeing ads for Emeril moving to FLN exclusively. We get him at least twice a day here on FN. Is everyone else getting it too? I wonder if the FLN is watchable.

Tonight is Alton Brown's new show. I'll be watching that for sure.

Guy Fieri....Guy Fieri......Guy Fieri.......OK, ENOUGH ALREADY!!! How much more can we take? Get the remote and start pushing those buttons everybody.

I have to tell you, Richard, after I commented on those Californians grilling lettuce, everybody is doing it. It seems to be a popular thing now.

The FLN is a Mothra Stewart vehicle. It's her station/channel. I don't get it on my cable.

Alton Brown is a total loser.

Tonight on the Iron Chef program (snail battle) I tuned in to see what was beig cooked. I stuck around because, as in all ICA programs they cook so much weird stuff I could not figure it out.

They were cooking sweetbread and snails, When AB went to talk to the judges they had some wrestler, a woman and the grumpy white guy that never likes anything, Steingartner? AB first asks the wrestler about snails and the guy makes a "never really ate them before, but I will keep an open mind" comment, the woman give some benign answer and the conversation goes to the old dude. AB asks him about his experience with snails. It's jeffrey steingartner, I think.....He says that he had hoped that there would have been some kind of giant African snail that is a foot long. He holds his hands up about a foot apart while talking to show how big they are.

AB then says, "Well maybe you and the wrestler can go out after the show and share a giant snail dinner." The camera cuts back and forth to the two panel members and they are sitting there with an absolutely blank look on their face. Obviously AB meant it as a joke, but you can tell that it was verging on some kind of some kind of sexual insult.

When Brown sees that he has offended them in some way and says, "Let's just move along." I am paraphrasing here because I had to stop and try to figure out what had just happened, It took place around 15 minutes in to the program....check it out.


If you watch the end of the new AB series you probably will see the usual mentions of all the people who 'donated' travel and lodgings for the series.
If the TVFN had to pay for the programs it would never get made.

I think I posted this before but, The TVFN show producers go to the travel councils of the area where they want to do the program and pitch the idea to the members. The members, looking for a cheap way to bring in tourists, call all their relatives or people who they get kickbacks from to promote their businesses.

The show gets made and if you get 500,000 people to view it, even a one percent increase of traffic into an area means 5,000 more people to spend money during a travel season.

Oh I almost forgot.

Watch how many eateries that he goes to and gets a plate on the table in front of him. I just saw the first segment of the program, The dish was Salted Cod in Creole sauce. HE never tasted the dish and when he went back to talk to the woman who was cooking, He picked up the raw piece of fish on the table then wiped his hands on his jeans.

HE did the same thing in his other specials. With other traveling cooks they taste what is prepared, this dude is a wuss.


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About cah lee fuh nee ahns and grilled food. We have nice weather most of the year, I have grilled in 35 degree weather-so it is true, we are crazy.

But, there is a joke about us Mexican people and why we do not BBQ....
It's because the beans and rice fall thru the grill!

I have seen people grill fruit, weird...and even avocados!

So, If it don't fall in the fire. We have tried!

[Daisy and Delilah]

[quote}But, there is a joke about us Mexican people and why we do not BBQ....
It's because the beans and rice fall thru the grill!

I have seen people grill fruit, weird...and even avocados!

So, If it don't fall in the fire. We have tried![/QUOTE]

Good one, Richard. lol

I saw Iron Chef last night. The AB thing was just plain weird. It was one of the weirdest IC's I've ever seen. The snails probably tasted ok but almost the whole show grossed me out. Wasn't it nice to give the giant wrestler a larger plate?? He's trying 10 or more dishes. How much does he really need to eat? He probably went out to eat after the show.

I gotta say I loved the AB show afterward. The bush tea was strange but......whatever. I guess it's a custom?
AB is just like GF and most everybody else on the FN. They have a huge dish prepared for them and they barely touch it. I was sitting there thinking about how much food they waste on that network.

Of course, I understand they can't eat it all because they would wiegh 500 pounds but......AB acted like he was always starving and never tasted half the food. Wasn't that the idea of the show? To sample the food?

Did you catch the part where he was walking through the cane field wearing black socks and sneakers? Holy Cow!! I know they did that for a laugh. Speaking of cane, they use it in everything.

What about when the captain of the boat told him there were naked women running all over the island they were going to. AB acted like he didn't hear him.

After that show, Michael Symon was on with the Charlie Daniels Dinner Impossible. Symon was actually panicking and sweating. It was something I haven't seen before in one of those shows.

I never thought about boneless chicken having no flavor. Those chicken fingers at Applebee's are delicious!!

I was totally intrigued by the cayenne pepper in the devils food cake they served. I think Symon put it in the frosting.

When the lady came out and told Symon that they had to serve the food earlier because the people showed up early, who cares? Tell them they'll eat when it's ready. That really got all over me how he hopped to it when she spoke. If you tell me 10:00 it's going to be 10:00 or, would you rather eat food that may not be cooked long enough?

I haven't seen anybody grill an avocado yet.

I think I get FLN on my cable. I'll check it out. I'm not positve that it's there but I think it is.

[RICHARD]

I had to laugh about the "cheeseburger in paradise"...

When I go on vacation I don't eat at the 'established' eateries, I go native.

I may get Beijing Bowel, Montezuma's Revenge, The Congo Crouch or the Kim Chee Squats.....But, I am on vacation, I am going native! I guess there is the allure to eat at the stool -pun intended?- where Jimmy Buffett ate a cheeseburger in paradise, but I won't go there for that one dish.

I want fish liver, pig kidneys, turtle tail soup! :confused I guess I might have to chow down at a Mickey D's while I'm in Macedonia, Mexico or Morocco. I can do that at home, anytime!

The other thing I noticed is the AB interruptions!
STFU! The Salt Cod Woman should have slapped him in the head with the fish.

[Daisy and Delilah]

AB interrupting: He was so hyper on that entire show. He's always like that but he seemed unusually overwraught. I've often wondered how he avoids spending most of his time in a bathroom. The man will eat anything. Don't put him and GF on the same shoot with one Port-A-Potty.

I saw the RR show this morning on CBS. Am I bored out of my mind or what? She has a bus that's touring the country to go around and help people cook meals in their homes. Supposedly, her chefs will teach people better cooking skills. It's got "Rach Reaches" on the side of it and it's bright red. I think that's what it said but I'm not sure. Pretty close anyway.
There are like 6 chefs traveling on it. Aaron McCargo is one of them. The others are winners of cooking shows and other things.

Look for that big red bus in your town.

Have I mentioned: Has anyone seen how tired Booby Flake looks lately? On Iron Chef to be specific.

[RICHARD]

Look for that big red bus in your town.

Have I mentioned: Has anyone seen how tired Booby Flake looks lately? On Iron Chef to be specific.

ANd take the chance of getting caught trying to break the windows?

NO way!


Fake is probably feeling the push of TVFN to keep 'fresh' ideas on the plate.

You can tell that Tooshman and the other chickie babe that judged the NTFNS are starving-LOL, how many food puns can I put into this post?-for new ideas and they are probably pushing the 'stars' to the boiling point.

If you notice, they are pushing the "smaller" shows off the air as soon as they do a run of 10-12 shows. Someone mentioned that the first winner of NTFNS was given a limited run of 6 shows. That keeps them from keeping a dog on their hands. If you notice that show was never rerun-they washed their hands of her pretty quickly. AB show is run as a 4 part special and it's mostly AB- I had a hard time being interested in watching him. They did one recipe, made tea, stopped to eat at a roadside stand and ate a cheese burger.

I would have liked to see him try to cook on the ship. I have always loved the BBQs that are on hung on the stand on the side of the boat. Try to make a cheeseburger on one of them.

I love the Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain shows on the Travel Channel. The trip around and show you how it's cooked, what is eaten and talk to people, They don't interrupt every word their guests say and try to overpower them with tidbits of trivia or guess what the cook is adding to the dish.

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Other TV chefs have been able to endure because they do not have to worry about getting pushed into going on the road, hawking utensils and doing more than one show a year.


The network is saturated with show after show of recipes that have already been done. I saw Florence do a braised short rib recipe that I have seen everyone else do-He did it differently by using pureed veggies instead of tossing chopped ones into the bottom of the pot. A different twist to be sure! I would like to try that. That keeps me interested in some shows.-but for the most part it's all Stupid Chef Tricks, wash your hands and the same expletives used to describe the food and tastes. Woody, Nutty, Smoky, Beautiful, Lovely, Bam, Off the Hook. I want to shzush this together, Hit it with some salt and think that it's MONEY!

Some tips? How about a show where they show you how appliances are made? A short, six part -1/2 hour each -series would be good. Go to a country and watch the locals cook the cuisine native to the are.

Noodles? Do a show on noodles, the kind from different countries and how to prepare them, how they are served and why. Don't turn it into chemistry test or a scavenger hunt to find ingredients. Make it attainable to people who like to cook.
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BTW,
Chorizo? In Spain it's a sausage like salami. In Mexico it's a greasy soft spicy breakfast sausage. I found out that in South America that it's a cut of steak!

I never knew that! How many different foods mean different thing to different people all across the world?

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I saw a restaurant show where they followed a guy Rocco Dispirito (?) open up shop, It was way too much 'reality' show and RS came off as a real (fake) AH. Follow someone in Littletown, America, not some jerkwad who names a restaurant after himself. We tend to look at food as status, comfort and rank.

I go to eat, not to be subjected to a pompous, arrogant moron who is more enamoured with a name than he is with giving a customer a quality meal that they do not hesitate paying a premium price.

Sometimes a .99 cent hamburger is just as good as a 100 dollar can of caviar.

[RICHARD]

Speaking of the Food Channel...

I saw a new program promo...

IT's some kind of cooking school show. I don't think that it's a competition-it looks like they will follow some aspiring chefs thru school..

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The news paper sends out a cooking insert once a month. I peruse them for recipes and stuff.

I was looking at a chimichuri (sp?) recipe -I'll get it later and post the it later- It's an olive oil based sauce/marinade that rocks my world.

You can use it on meet to prep it, after you cook the meat or as a bread spread. If you toast a hard crusty bread and spread this on it you will be hooked, I'd compare is to an oily pesto!

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Oh, I watched another small part of AB's Eating on Waves and found again that I have some strange eating habits.

My mom always taught me that I should...(these are buffett rules!)

Never put a spoon you have shoved in your mouth back into a community plate.

Serve yourself from the sides of a community plate,

Serve yourself from a larger plate into YOUR plate as opposed to going down the line tasting every plate (with the same spoon)

For new food you have never tasted before, take a small portion so it you don't like it .......you won't waste food.

Brown was standing behind a woman who ran/had something going called, LoLo's? He was tasting from a bunch of plates lined up, all had a different dish on them. he repeatedly shoved the spoon he was using into different dishes and at one point, reached over one dish to serve himself from the side farthest away-So. if the dish was a clock face, he stood at the 6 o'clock position reached over and took a spoonful from 12 and brought it back over the plate to his mouth.

Yech.

I drop stuff on my stove top and will eat it. I taste and cook with one spoon, when I cook for myself. But why are people, who are schooled in cooking/food prep/sanitary techniques, have no manners when it comes to serving/eating?

The other thing that I won't do is have anyone feed me with their utensils.
If we are eating a meal in public and someone offers me a taste of their meal I always have them use their spoon to put the food on the palm of my hand or on my dish.

If it's someone I swap saliva with then all bets are off!

If Guy Fieri showed up at my table and tried to snake a bite off of my plate, he'd have to pull the fork outta his hand.....


I have to laugh at myself sometimes....I'll get grossed out when I see someone on the FN do something nasty with food and don't even stick around to see the end of the program!

[Karen]

Only once in my life have I ever had someone take food off my plate - we were at the wedding of a mutual friend, standing around at the reception. We all had little plates of food. This guy just reached over and snagged food off my plate with this fork. I was completely appalled, but thankfully kept my composure: the bride was having a stressful enough day, and I didn't need to add to it by causing a scene. But I never thought of that guy again without cringing!

[Medusa]

I had friends over for Thanskgiving dinner a couple of years ago, placed the turkey in the middle of the dining table and before we all were even seated, one of my guests reached over, snapped off both the turkey wings and slapped them on her plate! I was so shocked, I was speechless! She and I are no longer friends. (not because of that)

[RICHARD]

I had friends over for Thanskgiving dinner a couple of years ago, placed the turkey in the middle of the dining table and before we all were even seated, one of my guests reached over, snapped off both the turkey wings and slapped them on her plate! I was so shocked, I was speechless! She and I are no longer friends. (not because of that)

That was really tacky! And the thing with Karen, People snagging food off of your plate!

In our huge family we would always defer to mom and dad. THey were dark meat fiends and they had the dibs on the drumsticks! We knew not to mess with them!

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I told the story about the woman in our office who HAD TO BE FIRST to serve herself at the pot lucks we would have.

She'd raise a huge stink about how she didn't like to go to a plate that someone had served themselves out of. She also had the habit of starting a task when she knew we were waiting on her-she was a selfish person and a jerk.

One time, just to be spiteful, I went ahead and served myself first.

Do you think that stopped her from eating and complaining?


NO!

[slick]

OK, call me stupid or call me whatever but I just watched Hell's Kitchen. I'm not sure if it's the same version as what you see down there but this time it's not Gordon R. It's some idiot with a headband. All the contestants seem to be from the UK. Anyway, I've been watching the last 5 or 6 episodes and I have a question.

Paul Young was one of the chefs who was eliminated. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the singer. Is he one and the same? You know "Everytime you go away" ??????

[RICHARD]

OK, call me stupid or call me whatever but I just watched Hell's Kitchen. I'm not sure if it's the same version as what you see down there but this time it's not Gordon R. It's some idiot with a headband. All the contestants seem to be from the UK. Anyway, I've been watching the last 5 or 6 episodes and I have a question.

Paul Young was one of the chefs who was eliminated. He bears an uncanny resemblance to the singer. His he one and the same? You know "Everytime you go away" ??????

What do you mean by 'Down There'? Are you trying to be punny with the Hell's Kitchen theme?

IT's not the same HK as we see down here. The Brits put out a program and we steal it because we cannot, as a nation of 340 million people, come up with any original programming...

YOu win the prize because it was PY and when the show goes into reruns, he does indeed, Go Away Every Time!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell's_..._(UK_TV_series)

[Logan]

Richard, do you ever watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS? It can be a bit dry, but it is a worthwhile 30 minutes of tv. I am on their mailing list and get kitchen tips from them all the time, some of them quite good! I am also on their recipe testing list, but I have yet to test a recipe! On that show, they do have a segment, every time, on testing kitchen utensils or appliances, as well as different food products, ranging from very expensive, to quite inexpensive. The results are sometimes amazing! And the recipes they work to make easier and enhance flavor are usually quite simple and good.

[RICHARD]

Richard, do you ever watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS? It can be a bit dry, but it is a worthwhile 30 minutes of tv. I am on their mailing list and get kitchen tips from them all the time, some of them quite good! I am also on their recipe testing list, but I have yet to test a recipe! On that show, they do have a segment, every time, on testing kitchen utensils or appliances, as well as different food products, ranging from very expensive, to quite inexpensive. The results are sometimes amazing! And the recipes they work to make easier and enhance flavor are usually quite simple and good.

Yes,

I do like the blandness! I like that the food is the star, not the "I made this for my husband and he proceeded to lick the plate afterwards" stories you get from on the FC.

Did you ever see the episode where they tasted olive oil? 50 bucks a liter? Geez, cook or use it as a facial? I like the cooks and the dude is a riot. I like when he whines about spicy foods!

I also watch the the other PBS program-the Martha Stewart produced offering with the four different gals that do a segment for each show. It's almost 'Cooking with the Stepford Wives'. Like you said, dry but with just the right amount of info, cooking and personality!

[Logan]

I missed the olive oil episode. I would have remembered that for sure!

Christopher Kimball sends out an email about once/month and I am always interested in the happenings in Vermont, especially when the maple syrup is flowing. I've never leaped off and bought any, but one day I will!

I'll have to expand my PBS viewing to catch other cooking shows. My husband loves to watch that BBQ guy when he comes on. I don't turn on the tv much, to tell you the truth, even though we have one in every room of this house! I still watch FN a lot. We don't get Martha's Fine Living network on our cable that I know of. And I have to tell you, I still love Guy, even if he grosses you out! He entertained me through my recovery from my neck surgery, earlier this year. Those diners he visits are amazing to me, even if I would be 500 pounds if I visited all of them!!!

[RICHARD]

Those diners he visits are amazing to me, even if I would be 500 pounds if I visited all of them!!!

I like the restaurants, especially the BBQ places, but it's his manners tha bug me. My parents taught us to be respectful in the kitchen -no games, flipping utensils and or acting up....It's just me anyway.


PBS has many good cooking shows, especially on the weekends! Check them out.