I suppose it's only a matter of time before all single-genre television networks start running out of ideas. Lately the Food Network has been sagging under its own weight (which could explain the rash of peripherally-involved cooking shows that keep popping up), and my patience as a viewer is growing thin. This could be a symptom of my changing taste, or perhaps my irritability at things I really like turning sloppy before my eyes. But this isn't group counseling.
Ultimately I love cooking shows because they offer pure escapism. I watch because I want to hold on to the artifice that I'm in these chef's kitchens and I'm watching them prepare food that they've had time-honored recipes for. I watch because I believe they're showing me a trick of their own trade; I'm stepping into their kitchen for them to show me their own skills and culinary prowess to provide food that just maybe I could learn to cook for myself.
Lately though, doesn't it seem like the Food Network personalities are just phoning it in?
It's becoming clear that Paula Deen's arsenal of recipes is actually not all that impressive, now that her shows have resorted to trying out recipes culled from her viewers' letter writing campaigns. Probably no surprise.... with a show that originally specialized in down home cooking (i.e. "Southern"), there are only so many times she can brag about her fried chicken. I don't tune in to "Paula's Home Cooking" to watch her bumble through some recipe she's never cooked before, nor do I have much desire to hear her engage in some borderline-psychotic-event one-way dialogue with the author of the recipe she's trying to get through. Yesterday's episode involved a paltry menu of "Mexican" dishes that in some way resembled the same "Mexican" dishes one could get from the grocer's freezer. The woman was on some kind of frantic auto-pilot; she'd never even thought of making what she was on camera before she woke up and the producers told her what was on the schedule. Further evidence of her producers running out of ideas: creative culinary stretches, such as Paula's blind stabs at French cooking. If the Food Network one-hour special of sending Paula Deen and her Santa-Claus-meets-Hell-Angels husband to Paris wasn't enough, the viewer has to suffer through Paula pretending that she's had French meals up her sleeve all along. I don't buy it. So, when it comes down to it, Paula is on the air solely because of her charm and original promise of cooking ability.... I just wish she was better at bullshitting her way through recipes to make it seem like she just maybe would prepare them for her own family from time to time.
I have a little more faith in Rachael Ray, and I do somewhat believe that she maybe has test drived her wacky recipe canon on her unsuspecting new husband. What concerns me is just how wacky her recipes are starting to become. Maple Chipotle Chicken? Whatever kind of bizarre Latin-Vermont fusion that is, I have no idea; insult to injury comes when she keeps mentioning how it looks just like Chinese takeout. If this recipe really is her own doing and not from the two-beer-buzz imagination of a Food Network test kitchen staffer, she could at least pretend that she's familiar with the ingredients she's using. I'm tuning in on the false pretense that this is her kitchen (re-labeled food and million dollar 1950's-design appliances and all), so when she opens her pantry and is surprised at what she finds inside, it's all too clear that she's practically coasting on cue cards. Besides, she's got a syndicated talk show to plan for; this "30 Minute Meals" crap is old hat to her by now.
The Food Network feels like it's losing some of its homey-ness and natural attitude in favor of something more fast-paced and a kind of labotomized user-friendly. Sandra Lee's valium-hangover sunniness and instant pudding mix-based recipes come to mind. Their cavalry of personalities seem to have been annointed infallible, and thus we get to watch them stretch the bounds of what it means to have a cooking show. Is it so much to ask that maybe they take a cue from the more cozy cooking shows of PBS's Saturday morning instead? Or maybe that's just a bygone era now.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
phoning it in on your own food network show
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5 comments:
"This could be a symptom of my changing taste, or perhaps my irritability at things I really like turning sloppy before my eyes. But this isn't group counseling."
Well, as you can remember with Channel 9's block of cooking shows, PBS had and still has, a solid block of cooking shows where the foor is paramount.
With the old FN, even a show like "The Best Of" managed to put the eight or so dishes that finally made it to screen in those thirty minutes, under the spotlight.
If you watch Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel, you can see that they shouldn't have let him go. He understands the balance of marketing himself as a personality, the adventure of finding a particular cuisine, as well as the cuisine itself.
Paula's specialty is Southern and there's only so many dishes in that repetoire. Rachel loses her mind every seven shows or so, ask Koreans what they think about her 30 Minute Kim Chee and Bol Go Ghi. She's better off sticking to Italian and Chinese cuisines if she wants to make her deadline. You see how raw that t-bone steak was the other day???
As you've pointed it out, the networks abandon the viewer during the summer and the normally reliable Food Network, is just lost.
I grew up watching the Saturday morning block of cooking shows on KQED with my parents.... hence my affinity for cooking shows, I guess. I was shocked and appalled when I made a joke about "Yan Can Cook" out here in New York last year and nobody got the reference.
I'd say things were looking pretty good a few years ago right on the cusp before Food Network went food-celebrity happy. Their golden age was strong back when "Cooking Live" was on the air, which was a fantastic showcase of Sara Moulton's natural talent as a chef. Too bad her pre-packaged "Sara's Secrets" that replaced it sucked so bad.
Spot on. One of these days we're going to look back at the Food Network the way we now look back at MTV. "Remember when the Food Network used to actually have cooking shows?" we'll say.
ITSW,
"I was shocked and appalled when I made a joke about "Yan Can Cook" out here in New York last year and nobody got the reference."
Barbarians! Knuckle-draggers!
Conversely, we didn't get Food Network in San Francisco until they got rid of Bay TV, I think that was 2001. I remember laughing at a joke on "Futurama" ("then you give it a hit of your spice weasel"), then finding out two years later that it was a Emeril-reference.
Armchair,
""Remember when the Food Network used to actually have cooking shows?" we'll say."
That will happen sometime next spring.
"nor do I have much desire to hear her engage in some borderline-psychotic-event one-way dialogue with the author of the recipe she's trying to get through."
HAHAHA AMAZING. I'm convinced Paula Deen is a major drunk.
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