Tag: food network

Amateur Gourmet Smackdown (in the nicest way)

A couple days later, and I’m still a little more agitated than is healthy over this Amateur Gourmet video on Food2.

First, I was planning a big trash-talk smackdown, pro-wrestling style. I’d gotten halfway into my spandex unitard and was starting to tease out my hair, and then I had a twinge. That developed into more of grad-school-y relativist approach. Now I’ve backed down from saying the Amateur Gourmet’s omelette was WRONG. It’s just different. Different in a way I wouldn’t want to eat.

So I devoted this week’s Cooking in Real Time episode to a polite, positive corrective.

Don’t get me wrong–I love the Amateur Gourmet video. It’s totally entertaining. Adam Roberts is hilarious, and so is his neighbor. The clip is goofy, and I’m a sucker for goofy. There should be more TV shows with talking pasta boxes and not-slick-looking people.

It’s just that…uh, if you follow the AG’s advice–and that of Chef Dude Whoever–you’ll wind up with a crappy omelette. (Unless it’s Opposite Day–in which case their advice will turn out a lovely tender omelette with perfectly melted cheese and a nice soft texture in the middle!)

Fine, I understand–TV is entertainment first. Or, really, money-making first, then entertaining, then maybe if you learn a little something you’re lucky. But caring so little about the end result (whether your omelette is nice and fluffy and soft or just a blob of scrambled eggs shaped in a circle with some cheese slapped in there) seems like bad practice.

If the Food Network cares so little about the actual food, perhaps it can change its name to the Fun and Money Network? I’d settle for that.

I also get that the Food Network has to cover its ass and tell you to cook your eggs all the way through. But if you do that…well, again, you wind up with something that’s a bad omelette.

But, good lord, there is no legal reason to tell people to beat their eggs for 2 or 3 minutes! That is just a silly waste of time. See the video for the right different way.

Food2: Amateur Gourmet

OK, I found something genuinely entertaining, and not something that exists in a weird I’ve-heard-this-is-cool universe: The Amateur Gourmet shorts.

I haven’t been a big fan of the Amateur Gourmet online because…I dunno. He’s not enough of a wise-ass or something. I admit I gave him about one chance, about five years ago.

But in person, he’s actually kind of adorable. And there is just enough to weirdness to make me not feel like a tool for watching food TV.

(Clip after the jump, to stop the autoplay annoyance.)
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Food2: Kitchen Conspirators

This is interesting. Food2, a new online arm of the Food Network empire, is on the march.

One of the things I’ve been waiting for is a (for now) online-only show called Kitchen Conspirators, which basically takes the supper club idea and gives it the reality-TV treatment.

I think Tamara and I might’ve even put our names in to be the “underground chefs” on this show–I was out of the country last summer when there was some back-and-forth with the Food Network.

So it makes it doubly funny to watch some of the episodes and sort of see my experience reflected in it. It’s what I imagine having your life adapted into a movie must be like. There’s more mainstream music; there’s a narrative arc that you never quite noticed at the time; there are wacky montages.

But let’s just say that after a little brainstorming session, I do not turn to Tamara and propose, “Let’s go to band practice and rip out those Scorpions covers.”

(To be fair, it looks like the mustachioed guy barely managed to say that with a straight face either. Er. I mean, I hope? I get lost in the layers of hipster irony.)

I guess FN is holding out the option of putting this on TV, because it’s still edited for a 30-minute time slot (although broken into smaller “episodes” for the web). I’d really like to see a more self-contained, short version. And I’d also like to see the party! That’s a weird let-down at the end…and that’s coming from someone who generally likes planning the parties much more than the parties themselves.

Embedded clip after the jump, so it’s not auto-play cacophony here on the main page.
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