Category Archives: TV Cooks
Giada is BUSTED!
Giada admits she doesn’t eat. Told ya’.
At about 90 seconds into the interview, she spills (the teaspoonful of lettuce in) her guts to Chelsea Handler.
I have long maintained you can’t trust the food of a skinny cook. They don’t eat; they couldn’t. Witness Sandra Lee, who obviously lives on White Zin, canned peas and sweet guv love. In the unlikely event she does nibble a corner of that Kwanzaa cake, I have no doubt she runs for the ladies’ and gacks it up almost immediately. Come to think of it, who could blame her?
“Another strand of linguine? Heavens no. I’ll blow up like Ina.”
Giada, too, has always been suspect in my book. Some would say that even a normal size body would be dwarfed by a head that big, but I don’t think it’s merely a question of scale. She’s just plain skinny, and the only way to achieve that is by not eating.
I’ve tried a couple of her recipes, and they’re middling at best, though they do require plenty of effort (bonus!). This just doesn’t work for me. Except as a weight loss tool. Clearly, however, it’s working for Giada.
So while you may mock Paula, Nigella and Mario, at least you can trust them to turn out food you want to eat. And you know you want to eat the deep fried cheesecake.
Ditto normal sized chefs. Jamie Oliver is trustworthy provided you can get over the lisp and the herbs (that’s right Joe Hoover, I said ERBS, not Herbth). Anthony Bourdain, though lean, gobbles steak and potatoes with relish, and Julia Child will always be the goddess of my prep station.
Sooner or later, we must all accept that weight loss comes from eating small portions of foods we only half like (or nothing at all), while skipping the ones we do. Just ask Giada.
The Bitch is Back
Nadia G’s Bitchin’ Kitchen
Capsule Review: Oh God, make it stop!
Aaaaay!
If you’re like me, you probably wonder what would happen if Pee Wee Herman married Snookie, they had a baby and then they set up housekeeping. On Riker’s Island. Well tax your brain no further; I have the answer. They’d have named the offspring Nadia G and you’d be watching her on Bitchin’ Kitchen.
Now, I get it. She’s a comedienne and a chef, she cooks in stilettos (gasp!) and has a zany cast of characters. Sound familiar? But the show’s on the Cooking Channel, and holy good God, how can you even begin to pay attention to what she’s cooking (cookin’?) with all that adenoidal yammering, scenery chewing and gesticulating going on all at once? Makes me feel like I’m having a grand mal seizure after about forty seconds. And it’s not even funny.
My advice: mix yourself a margarita and stick with Pee Wee, the original and still the best.
The Slattern Rants: “Oh no, I don’t cook.”
I ADORE puppies…as long as someone else does the cooking.
As I have previously documented in my cluttery, overfurnished, boozy little corner of the blogosphere, given even a glimmer of a chance, I would move into a hotel and eat every meal in a restaurant for the rest of my life. In a heartbeat. Alas, though we all have dreams, we must also live in the real world. As such I can cook, and of necessity I do cook; from time to time I’ll admit I even enjoy it.
Knowing how to prepare a basic meal is just one of those things a reasonably competant adult should be able to do, along with riding a bicycle, driving a car and swallowing the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle without going all sissy and gagging.
PSST Guy. Guy, your shades are on BACKWARDS. Courtesy foodnetworkhumor.com
Now I’m not saying everyone needs to be able to rustle up a standing rib roast or les nonnettes de poulet Agnès Sorel at the drop of a hat, but really the production of a simple omelette or burger should be well within the abilities of even the meanest intelligence. Hell, Guy Fieri has built a lucrative career as a cook, and he can’t even figure out which side of his head his fucking sunglasses belong on.
Butter me up, Ina! I’ve got a yen for chocolate cake.
“Psst, your collar. Your collar is UP.” (courtesy Food Network)
People swear by the Barefoot Contessa, but I don’t agree. It’s not just that her bangs bug me, though they most certainly do, or even that I get so preoccupied with the desire to flip her collar back down where it belongs that I can’t focus on the food. What really gets up my nose is the not-so-subtle nagging quality to Ina’s recipes: use extra large eggs, finest quality chocolate, freshly brewed hot coffee. I mean really – once a cup of coffee has been baked into a cake, who could possibly tell the difference between a freshly brewed cup and one that’s been sitting around on the counter for an hour? I’ll tell you who. Nobody.
Then there are the oven temps where the Fahrenheit is always indicated, as in “350 degrees F.” Now there’s an important safety tip, Egon. You don’t want to take a chance that people will think they should set their ovens to 350 Celsius, which if memory serves is approximately the surface temperature of Mercury. But of course, our Contessa spends so much time on the Continent that one understands her need to clarify.
Hey Hey Paula, I wanna move next door to you
What is it about Paula Deen? Is it the accent? The hair? The butteranoerl? Maybe it’s the openly unhinged-ness of it all. Witness:
Apparently it’s all the romantical gnawing and the bone sucking.
But then there’s this, girlfriend:
I love her. After about teeyen minits ah staht talkin’ lahk thayat. Reeeel slow lahk.
No kidding, I could watch this stuff for days. I defy you to stop once you get started. Just make sure you trash the Krispy Kremes and deep six the bacon before you open the vein and jack into the matrix, folks.
