I hate the Food Network so much right now.

Still, nice try. And do please make the trip down, though maybe in October or November. It's lovely here that time of year.

then we took the kids to the Texas Historical Museum, which we enjoyed greatly, and returned to our car an hour later to find that our Democratic-Party-themed bumperstickers had been torn off our car and ripped to pieces and sprinkled on the parking garage floor

that incident (which probably wouldn't bother you given your political views, but worried me a bit) started me thinking about that Lift To Experience record, Lyle Lovett's "You're Not From Texas," Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Screw You We're From Texas," all the proud BBQ!!! restaurant signs we saw on our way there and on our way back.

so color me unconvinced that there is no cowboy mentality in Texas.

yeah, sure, some Food Network shows focus on stupid stuff like that. yet I saw a great episode of "$40 a Day" where the host ate great in Dallas: Tex-Mex, health food, margaritas, lovely.

we might move to Austin anyway, but it's probably too damned hot for me.

And yes, Rachael Ray does mostly do a good job with not keeping to a one-track mind when it comes to her "$40 a Day" program. It was all wonderfulness and light when I saw her in Corpus Christi showing how many different things one could do there, even in the "dead" of winter. That was a treat. Also a treat -- fully half the places she showed there were places my parents visited when they had their honeymoon there, including the place where Rachael had breakfast.

and please don't mention Rachael Ray again while I'm single because I might break down and cry. thanks.

The cowboy-fetish? Still in full-force now - lookit all the SUVs and trucks. The cowboy stores and bad country music stations (there more than a half-dozen in the Metroplex. Maybe they're 'urban cowboys' - poseurs - but it's still in force.

The barbecue? Still lots of 'em, but rivalled by the number of bad Chinese and Mexican restaurants.

The Wild West mentality? Oh, God yes.

What part of Texas do you live in Dee?

(by the way I owe Waco a huge debt of gratitude, driving south with a thunderstorm a-building, needed a boost, pulled over to a drive-thru Starbucks, got a couple of venti-ass coffees, rocked it on down to Austin in no time flat. love Waco now)

Aw. I'm single too. And hey, if you love Ms. Ray, you'd like me! Just have bigger lips than hers. It's a culture thing.

As for the title -- it leads one to believe that it will be all about the whole of the state in terms of cuisine, rather than the tiny little bit that will be spotlighted. I think it would've been nice to go around the state and sample some of the best cuisine of the varying areas. Those of us who've lived in TX for a long time know that Texas is really a state of five parts -- the northern part, the southern part, the western part, the eastern part, and the central part, all of which are distinct entities that are dissimilar more than they are similar. Even in individual communities within each of those breakdowns, there are distinctions worth mentioning. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would tell you that Amarillo, for example, is the same as Dallas, even if the two are both located in the northern part of the state.

And I know it's a tiring schtick of mine to be the Big Crusader to Break With Stereotypes, but I feel like if I'm not the one doing it, who will? (This would be where my "innocent dreamer" handle becomes really descriptive, see.)

Most of Waco is nice, yes.

OMG

(I hate Emeril.)

...I made her chicken barbeque sandwich one night and it was KILLER. Also under 30min. Also EVERY show on the Food Network is about BBQ this time of year.

ha! my former landlords now live upstate in the same area as RR.

I, um, was passionate with the original portion of the thread, wasn't I? Well, the Food Network still makes me angry at times, but due to different reasons than the original ones. The most recent example is tonight's ep of "The Secret Life Of...", about sugar, that was breathtakingly ignorant about its stance on sugar substitutes. Like, hello, some of us don't want to develop diabetes before we're 30, thankyoueverymuch, and you sure as hell have a higher risk of developing diabetes if you suck down a lot of those high-sugar sodas. Ugh. And yeah, I did just big-up the Sugar Queen herself, i.e. Ms. Deen, but if you use sugar substitute for at least half the sugar content of the desserts and just slightly reduce the total overall sugar need in the recipes, they come out TOTALLY kickass and they're still nice and rich and sweet. Only thing I won't ever make from her is her Krispy Kreme bread pudding, which is sure to send anyone into a diabetic coma.

Anyway. Rachael's personality sucks but she's got some good recipes.

I HATE FOOD NETWORK SO MUCH RIGHT NOW! ARGGGH!

alton's self-effacing dork shtick is a little shticky but when he's just focusing on the food science and the macgyver stuff and the nutritional anthropology, he's unfuckingbelievable. i like that he's one of the few cooks in tv history who's ever bothered to explain what it is an oven DOES when you turn the gas on and put food in it.

FREE FOOD EPISODE

This guy
http://images.scrippsweb.com/FOOD/2006/01/03/george_whisk_e.jpg
who apparently used to write for the French edition of FHM, hosted an award-winning French cuisine show while living in Paris, worked on production for MTV's House Of Style, and lives in Brooklyn, goes around and makes food for people on the street from stuff people on the street give him. This can be done in the city, in the suburbs, in a park, in a grocery store, or while camping. Alton Brown : Bill Nye :: Georges Duran : Mythbusters

I thought the consensus on Rachel Ray was that she sucks?

A) How she says every word in the most annoying, mannered way possible.
B) How she has sooooo many friends OMG and they ALLLLWAAAAAYS bring over wine.
C) Then, for 5 minutes, Giada makes, for example, CORN TORTILLAS SPRINKLED WITH CHEESE AND OLIVE OIL, THEN BAKED FOR 10 MINUTES. Bravo, chef, bravo! I never could've figured that one out!

Then, 15 minutes of her equally obnoxious friends marvelling over MAGIC NACHOS and drinking 18 gallons of wine at Giada's house. I really don't understand how anyone can hate Rachael Ray or even Alton Brown who I am on record as finding a little bit irritating and joy-killy when this woman exists and has a show.

wait wait I missed the Venezuelan hotdogs!!

Nigella = smokin', though. And Ham on the Street sounds great.

It's totally about her name. I wish my dad produced bad 80s movies.

I love the BBQ specials, btw.

xpost
giada's boobs are so awesome.

Ally, yes she does. Put cocks up yr ass an u will talk liek that.

i think i tolerate rachael's voice more than giada's because rachael is got that nasally fran drescher thing that i'm used to whereas giada sounds like a shitbag nonce. I don't actually watch either of these shows though.

also: "artisenal baked parmesan crisps"--hee!

Alton Brown is awesome. His Thanksgiving turkey=thing of delicion, and I never used to like turkey.

OTM, and that's the first place I started to loathe her. Plus she's too too chipper all the time.

i'm not one to stick up for her, but she doesn't claim to be a chef or even someone with any formal culinary training -- she came up through catering and being a buyer and making local tv appearances in albany.

I don't think lack of actual chefiness should automatically disqualify you from being on the Food Network. xpost with jbr

Where does one get free-range, organic eyeball thses days?

the "eyeball" thing is annoying because recipe writers SHOULD state approximate proportions. i eyeball measurements all the time, but i've been cooking for years; it takes some practice to be able to wing it.

x-post

xxxxpostsah

YES THANK YOU. really good extra virgin olive oil isn't for cooking, it's for salad dressings and infusions and stuff. if you're frying, you should use regular olive oil; it has a higher smoke point.

xpost

Jody, OTM.

yeah, canola is my standby for really high-temp cooking -- i wish i could afford safflower or flax seed oil or whatever, but i can't. :-(

oh god, that's awful. that's like inviting a recovering alcoholic to a cocktail party.

Boil hot dogs, steam buns. Top with chopped onion, chopped cabbage, crushed potato chips, mayo and possibly mustard/ketchup. Serious awesome. We used that fancy pants Temeraire super dijon but I think yellow would work just fine.

ugh, i'm so sick of families. nothing against, you know, families -- i just can't stand it when TEH MEDIA and TEH GOVRENMINT try to make single/childless people feel like shit about their unfulfilled lives that are so devoid of real values, etc.

Things I like:
Restaurant Makeover, Recipe for Success, Sugar Rush, Oliver's Twist, How To Boil Water, Molto Mario

Things I can watch but irritate me a little:
Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello, Boy Meets Grill, 30 Minute Meals, Essence of Emeril, Barefoot Contessa, Rachael Ray's Tasty Travels, FoodNation With Bobby Flay, Paula's Home Cooking, Everyday Italian, Iron Chef America

Things I completely loathe:
Emeril Live, The Best Of, Top 5, Unwrapped, Roker on the Road, The Secret Life Of

Everything else is too boring to watch.

i heart alton brown, but i'm a science geek so i would. rachael ray at least seems genuine, even though her perkiness does get to me. her technique seems really sloppy, though some of the food she makes looks like it could be pretty good. bobby flay seems like an asshole. i like mario batali--at least he can really cook and doesn't spend all his time dicking around with like, pomegranate-mango-molasses-cilantro salsa or whatever absurd fruity concoction flay's daubing on his char-grilled carcasses. tyler florence is dreamy.

the semi-homemade show is truly harrowing. i watched an episode recently when i was at my parents' house, and it was about her making a rose-flavored meal. rose-flavored cakes, cupcakes, bread, etc etc. the rose bread recipe involved bags of storebought cake mix mixed with literally like, a liter of rose syrup. gross!

Sign me up. Yum.

I learned more about food from any single episode of "Taste" than in a week of solid viewing of current Food Network programming.

And on equal authority that Mario Batali really is that much of a sweetie.

I missed meeting David Burke the other night (he had gone home cause he wasn't feeling well), but I got a chance to try some new popover thing he's going to put out instead of bread at his new restaurant inside the James Hotel in Chicago and it was reeeeal good. (Tip to Chicagoistas: the "South Side" filet mignon will be exactly the same filet mignon as in the NY restaurant :( )

Last time I saw southerner Paula Deen, I almost had a heart attack as she made roast pork wrapped in bacon w/egg-enriched cream gravy.

How has this thread made it this far without mentioning sunny Ina “Barefoot Contessa” Garden and her never-ending stream of rich-as-fuck, bored, cultured Hampdens “friends”/neighbors?

Or Sandra Lee’s Martha Stewart-esaue obsessive entertaining ideas and insistence on ending each show by preparing mixed drinks?

jbr, have you seen those ads for, i think ITT, the 2 year technical college, where they showcase the life of someone who has graduated? They have maybe 5 or 6 fake graduates that use over 5 or 6 different ads. They go on about how ITT changed their life and how they just love their job as they hike up a mountain or row on a lake, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM slip in 'im engaged now'. What the fuck does that have to do with it? Like 'now im no longer an unemployed loser, im lovable!'

that had nothing to do with the food network.

I bet the person who did the theme is a big Durutti Column fan.

i sorta like the chinatown tour show with martin yan. he takes you on a walk thru chinatowns all over the place and gets some food, helping a cook in the kitchen while the owners hover behind him, beaming with pride and interjecting every now and then. but other than that, all i see is a lot of dumb shows about weddings and famous hot dog stands.

that had nothin whatsoever to do with books. i dont know what that was. is she the one with porno music playing in the background the whole time?

you know what i love though? the show where they feature people trying to start/keep afloat food businesses. i just wish one of 'em would fail to make it all seem more authentic. like i love iron chef, but why can't more than three non-iron chefs win, you know?

I love her show though because it's so so funny.

My wife and I always crack that the only reason any of her guests are friends with her is because she serves up great meals.

I can't stand that one dude who's a personal chef, and he's all about helping you make great food cheap -- I just don't believe that his pals actually like him for any other reason than the one I gave above for Ina.

haven't seen any of martin yan's show yet.

I never find the stuff he makes very appealing.. it seems.. showy and uncertain.. Putting too many strange ingredients together and adding a bunch of garish extras. Make up your mind, dude. I don't want to sample six kinds of sauce because you can't/won't pick one good one that really suits the entree.

what i like best about good eats is how even though alton sometimes simplifies things for entertainment purposes and good visuals, he's never condescending to his viewers. he explains things, but he explains them at his own level of intelligence, not some imaginary hausfrau's.

i mean i know a lot of people really DIG being talked down to, but i hate it.

It's basically the NPR of cooking shows.

anyone seen this show called "Party Line With the Hearty Boys"??? this is the gayest show in the history of food network

two dudes w/ a silent chemistry cooking brunch right now and talking about how to entertain for brunch

now they're talking about when they went to paris and ate quiches together

http://img.foodnetwork.com/FOOD/2008/08/19/hearty-boys_med.jpg

Tune in: Thursdays at 4am/3c

^^lol why is this show only on on thursdays at 4am - i've seen every episode of the past 4 weeks i think

those are the guys who won the first round of "the next food network star" or whatever, being a gay couple who are all about how to cook and entertain for every occasion was their whole pitch

haha okay thanks tom - that explains why FN would produce a show thats only on one day a week @ 4 am (i guess they are contractually obligated?). i wonder how they feel about guy ferrari (lame joke but it's 4:15 am) being on fridays ads and shit

they also have a restaurant and catering business here in chicago. we went to a tasting to consider getting them to cater our wedding but the food wasn't that great and they served us chicken even though we told them no meat in the tasting :/

and THAT is my story about hearty boys

Unemployment has had me watch this and Animal Planet far more than I ever would have otherwise. My fave show on there right now is 'Ace of Cakes', due a mix of awesome design + cute arty chicks + food

I'm kinda curious how much of the show is edited, as the kinda folks seem like they would be busting out fcc-violations every 30 seconds or so.

Also, it's difficult to wrap my head around the difference in looks between Rachael Ray as pictured upthread in 2005, versus the RR now, who looks like she's lived in the exurbs for like 10 years with a sedentary office job since that photo

I hate Guy Fieri. No one's impressed by how much of a bro you are, bro. And not even the douchiest of douchebags says "money" anymore.

he's a pro bro. yuck.

guy is pretty annoying and lame but i still watch that show cause of the content.
wtf is up with all this cake bullshit? ace of cakes, plus every showdown or whatever the fuck is all about cakes. which is the most boring food category to feature imo.

More visually interesting than just about anything else, even if you wouldn't want to eat the finished product. Might as well have them work in clay as in edible ingredients, really.

Animal Planet >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the Food Network

Animal Cops is particularly awesome.

I used to watch Food Network constantly, and now I couldn't even imagine stopping there. What happened?

All the hosts are dikcs, cnuts, Gomers or Gee-Whiz Marthas. (RIP Ming Tsai)

Travel Channel is equally shitty (Dhani Travels The Globe is okay, but it feels like it should be better cuz the concept is great and he's pretty engaging.)

I guess being "visually interesting" is not something I'm looking for in my food tv. Like, at all. Cause interesting looking doesn't translate to tasty. Actually the decked out cakes look completely unappetizing/inedible.

Travel Channel is equally shitty

Yeah, when Bourdain isn't on, that channel doesn't exist.

plus i reflexively turn the channel whenever cute art chicks are involved in anything

xp no doubt. plus it's not available in HD for me, which is key w/travel shows.

i love food and travel so much, you really have to put out a supremely shitty product for me not to want to watch anything involving those two.

That's pretty much basic cable in nutshell though. Take things that people love and produce shitty programs about 'em interrupted by Oxy-Clean commercials.

My mom calls Food Network 'Nickelodeon for adults.'

"Dhani Travels The Globe is okay, but it feels like it should be better cuz the concept is great and he's pretty engaging"

I like the show. Bizarre Foods is also entertaining mostly because the host is as bizarre as the food.

I like it too, but I just wished they focused on the sports part and had less annoying voiceovers.

I agree with that. The parts where he is practicing are by far the best parts. The best thing about him is that he takes these sports so seriously and wants to do well in them and learn about them. He is not just half-assing it and going through the motions.

(RIP Ming Tsai)

He still has his show - it's just over on PBS now: http://ming.com/simplyming/ and http://ming.com/simplyming/video.html

Yeah, I knew he was still on the air, it was just a "why did Food TV let one of their best hosts get away?" joke. Actually, I thought he was more interesting/likeable than his dishes. (Haven't seen his PBS show.)

The Ace of Cakes show I like due more from the design/engineering aspect, as they take this weird theme or idea and somehow figure out a way to render it in three-dimensional cake form.

Plus I'm usually drunk when I watch it and it's fun to see them screw things up and/or run around in a panic.

Know your enemy:

http://twitpic.com/psiug

I remember bemoaning the 'guest eaters' on Molto Mario, and complaining about Emeril's 'new' show where he cooked for a studio audience.

IF ONLY THAT WAS THE WORST OF FOOD NETWORK NOW.

Come back Molto Mario, all is forgiven!!

I hate Guy Fieri. No one's impressed by how much of a bro you are, bro. And not even the douchiest of douchebags says "money" anymore.

― lindseykai, Friday, April 17, 2009 4:29 AM (6 months ago) Bookmark

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Cooking Channel is 10000x better than Food Network has ever been, btw. It's pretty close to what I always hoped Food Network would be.

mentioned this in some other thread but gf literally refuses to enjoy any TV that isn't the food network. praying to god they don't add cooking channel to our cable package.

'chefs have to make something and there's a time limit and then the judges say mostly good things but a few mean things'
vs.
'let's look at places that make food'

Yeah, Cooking Channel is blessedly absent of all competition shows near as I can tell, except for the original Iron Chef.

oh good...she won't want to watch it anyway. though the food network has been pimping cooking channel out soooo hard.

also, at least bourdain / travel channel go cool places - food network basically pretends like food isn't made outside of america.

more than that, the nyc-focus is really tiring. seems like every sous chef in the city has been on the food network by now.

food network daytime programming is my shit

"The Next Food Network Star" is possibly the worst piece of crap ever to air on television. It seems like such a brand-killing peek behind the curtain for them, and yet they promote the crap out of it.

"Ch3fs vs. C1ty" is also embarrassing, esp. since Chri$ Co$ent1no is a friend...

aaron and chris are hilarious on that show.

did you go to his wedding where he sabered?

No, but he taught me how to saber at a BBQ one time. My wife hired him at Incanto, and was his sous chef for a few years.

I like Chris, but the OTT product-placement of that show is obnoxious, and promotes a bunch of bad food and restaurants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAn8zclX3Po&feature=player_embedded#!

Cooking Channel is 10000x better than Food Network has ever been, btw. It's pretty close to what I always hoped Food Network would be.

my cable system doesn't carry it yet but i saw a few hours of it at my folks' place. it does seem like an improvement (more of a global focus, thank god) but it still comes across as a little peppy and superficial. i hope their ratings do well and they don't worry too much about what the market research gurus tell them.

and if i never see "easy" or "simple" in the name of a cooking show again it'll be too soon. give me a complicated, multi-step project!

"The Next Food Network Star" is possibly the worst piece of crap ever to air on television. It seems like such a brand-killing peek behind the curtain for them, and yet they promote the crap out of it.

I watch FN on the ex machine at my gym and this show (reruns?) is always on - the two network people/judges are such stereotypical NYC media biz creeps

All the judging on lame meta-criteria (their backstory, how well they "work" on camera, what their "hook" is, etc.) is cringeworthy, and strangely straightforward in its condescension towards and disrespect for FN viewers.

I dunno, at least it's honest!

I guess; it's more that I'm surprised that they think all this inside-baseball talk is good for the FN...

the ace of cakes dude is secretly worse than guy fieri

YES

guy fieri is also secretly AMAZING

the ace of cakes dude actually thinks he's really cool and that cakes are really cool

whereas guy fieri exists in a world without cool or uncool

http://foodnetworkhumor.com/wp-content/uploads//eat-ray-love.jpg

put a lil EVOO on her and now we're talkin

dee got really mad in the original post

Ok, moment over. But I still could MURDER these people.

alex guarnaschelli seems like the most miserable person. at least she doesn't have a freaky giada smile pasted on her face though.

were you watching chopped? she was particularly overwrought on that episode.

i watch food net on the gym machine (takes my mind off the pain) and yesterday giada made superbowl snacks for the hunky hub and his buds. adorable little hors d'oeuvres/finger food! yagottabekiddinme.com

[img]http://fatkidatcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Guy-Fieri.jpg[img]

I'll try again
http://i.imgur.com/g5Yg7.jpg

Dynamite! Rock star! Outta bounds!

she's talented, but i can definitely do without her "rock star" shtick.

BROWN BREAD IN A CAN. WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

Dude that has been a thing since forever.

a terrible hideous thing.

No it's not! You just haven't had good brown bread, for realsies. Brown bread steamed in a faintly-scented Café Bustelo tin, made with graham flour and stone ground cornmeal, molasses, dried blueberries....

I use an adapted version of my great granfmother's recipe; last year I made a savory brown bread with chilies, blue cornmeal and rendered suet.

Lies: suet doesn't really render, so it was just kind of whipped into the batter.

http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n469/dabeast3c/Random2b.jpg

*annoyed by food network*

wonder whatever happened to dee the lurker

i get the feeling dee is just lurking now? i dunno why, just a feeling

haw

Please tell me that is a shop.

this bbq episode of "chopped":

"i make guy food. i'm all about MEAT and FIRE."
"i'm gonna SMOKE the competition."

the first challenge is yak steak.

"vegetables, that's kryptonite for me"

"i'm gonna make a peanut butter cookie mayonnaise."

Everytime Dr BBQ referred to himself as Dr BBQ my gf and I drank.

this is filming in my neighborhood today:

http://blog.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/2013/09/robert-irvines-restaurant-express/