Celebrity Chef Roundup: Books, TV/Film, Restaurants, Websites, News

[Darb]

Alton Brown: I've said it in multiple places ... I have nothing bad to say about the man. Heck, I'm an unrepentant food geek myself, so we're more alike than we're different. His show is fine ... although it's a bit campy and silly at times. My main problem is with his book "I'm just here for the food", which blows the big one ... and that's more the result of crappy editing, excessive padding, and lousy production/layout than anything on the part of the author. Bottom line, is that you have no beef with me on this.

Rachel Ray: Hey, she's good at what she does ... which is primarily being a perky & ebullient tourist and TV personality-for-hire, and being the postergirl of simple chop & saute cuisine. Culinarily speaking, she's queen of the kiddie pool - I'm not saying that to be mean, that's just her target audience. My problem is not her target audience. Unlike Bobby Flay, RR is reputedly a very nice person IRL. My problem is primarily her personality ... she's just one of those people who unintentionally sets my teeth on edge, like a tuning fork. I just wanna grab the nearest sofa pillow, and gently pummel her with it ... I just cant help or explain it. If we met in real life, I'm sure we'd probably get along famously, and yuk it up ... but on TV, she just sets my teeth on edge. The other reason I don't like her is that I'm not happy with the whole concept of people getting culinary TV shows simply because they're "personalities", rather than respectable chefs who are qualified for the role by virtue of culinary knowledge, genuine skill, and professional experience. RR has none of those things. I think it's rather sad that the food network is so focused on personalities, and not on genuine skill. Ditto for Giada DeLaurentis ... she reputedly has had some catering experience (didn't catrch her bio show ... not that she actually deserved one), but that's it. She got her show because she's drop dead gorgeous, and perky on screen - not because she's a good chef. They wave recipes under her nose on the teleprompter, and she reads them and beams her 1,000 watt smile (while wearing a push-up bra), and sells it - and ratings boom. Lest people misunderstand, I'm NOT anti-feminist ... far from it. In fact, I can probably name more respectable female chefs than most street people can name sports stars, and I'd rather see ANY of them with a show than RR of GdL. If people want to look down on me because I openly and unrepentantly prefer substance over style, so be it. That's my $0.02.

Bobby Flay: I dont even know where to begin. I think his food is often as overwrought (and oversauced/overflavored) as a $3 whore. He's disrespectful to other people's cultural sensibilities. There's a constant undercurrent of rudeness and arrogant abrasiveness that seems to be just under his skin that comes out with very little provocation ... oh, don't get me started. He can grill, he can order people around, he's good at marketing concepts, and he's good with chili-based sauces, but that's about all I'm willing to say ATM.

[daetara]

so if you don't like people who get shows because of who they are, what do you think of sandra lee?

[daetara]

maybe i just haven't dug deep enough yet, but i'm actually surprised you haven't ripped her apart...check out her board on that food forum i told you about and see what they have to say about her.

[Darb]

Actually, I've never seen her show, so I havent had cause to comment before. Reading her bio just now, I must say I'm not especially impressed by people whose chief claim to fame is being pretty, and being a homestylists, image-crafter, and product-line proponent of the Martha Stewart mode. Feh.

My personal focus (in this particular sub-forum anyway), is with people with serious talent, and skill, in culinaria, beverage crafting, and perhaps writing about same.

[violetblue]

Anthony Bourdain has some tips for wanna-be celebrity TV chefs:

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Departmen ... f&GT1=7965

[Darb]

It's a great article, and 100% spot on.

[Paladin]

Looks like this 2nd season of The Next Food Network star is down to the final two. Its between the gay guy Reggie, or Guy the blonde spikey hair dude. Well, since the first episode winners were the two gay guys, Steve and Dan. I going to place my bet that the winner is going to be Reggie. However Reggie's idea is to do another southern cooking show, since there already a show by Paula Dean it might be his downfall. Guy wanted to do a kinda of a "Take food to the Extreme" show. Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the update.

[violetblue]

Oh, Paladin, I hadn't seen that episode yet! Oh, well, I and the gods of cuisine forgive you. I thought that woman had a pretty good chance, even though she's spastic and plasticy, because the food network people seemed to really like her idea for a show. Reggie and Guy, well, I don't know. If they choose Guy, I would say it's because they are still trying, like with Ham On the Street, to reach a younger, perhaps edgier, crowd. All of Guy's food always looks so sloppy to me. I am a bit fastidious about some things, and I was kind of grossing out when he mixed up that big punch bowl of drinks for the food editors and then handed them big straws. Ewww! Reggie has a better personality, and his food looks REALLY good. I saw that shrimp and fried corn thing he made on the episode, YUM as Rach says. Fried corn is definitely a Southern dish I fully embrace.

[Paladin]

And the winner for the second season is,.....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
. Guy! I think they prefered his show since Reggie had a show similar to Paula Dean.

[clong]

Celebrity chef Mario Batali admits that putting duck testicles in the pasta at his new restaurant is a bit of a provocation, but in the cutthroat New York food world, it's not enough just to be provocative.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlene ... E-FOOD.xml

[tollbaby]

EWWWWWWWW. Sounds like Brad's sort of experiment. *shudder*

[Darb]

I dont mind the duck cajones ... it's the 12 million figure that rolled my eyes. 12 million is too much to invest in a restaurant - even the famous "Russian Tearoom" in uptown (aka Metropolis, in DC comics) learned the folly of that.

My sole interest is in good food ... the fancy decor is a total waste of resources IMNSHO, and I'd just assume not pay for such. Only the spoiled elite, and social climbing wannabes, care about such things. I went once, and that was enough. I'd rather see the money go into the food, not the setting.

Oh, and did you catch the dishes mentioned at the bottom of page 1 ... fried mayonnaise ? Ice cream bernaise ? Good grief.

[violetblue]

New vegetarian series starting on PBS, Delicious TV. In the latest Vegetarian Times magazine I got, it says that the hostess, Toni Fiore, was approached to do her show on Food Network, but FN wanted her to add chicken and fish to her show, which she refused to do. Here's the link to her site: http://www.delicioustv.com/.

Also, Hell's Kitchen is set to start on Fox June 12. The website http://www.fox.com/hellskitchen/ has an interview with last season's winner. I was interested to hear that he had gone to culinary school in London, and had tried to work for Gordon Ramsay for free, only to discover there was a two- or three-year long waiting list to work for free, let alone work for him for pay! The other interesting thing in the interview was his description of how much work the contestants had to do on the show. The expected the contestants to do all their own prep and clean up, along, of course, with the actual cooking. With interview times, etc., they were putting in 18-20 hour days.

Anyway, I really liked this show, and it was nothing like the The Next Food Network Star. This show has some grit and you see them working in an actual kitchen. The first runner up on the show is going to be on an episode of Iron Chef America. I can't get the schedule to come up right now or I'd link it.

[Darb]

Looks like this 2nd season of The Next Food Network star is down to the final two. Its between the gay guy Reggie, or Guy the blonde spikey hair dude. Well, since the first episode winners were the two gay guys, Steve and Dan. I going to place my bet that the winner is going to be Reggie. However Reggie's idea is to do another southern cooking show, since there already a show by Paula Dean it might be his downfall. Guy wanted to do a kinda of a "Take food to the Extreme" show. Only time will tell. Stay tuned for the update.

It all seems like a big sham to me ... last season's winner didn't really get a show, did they ? I haven't seen them.

[mini rant]

I'm not big on "reality shows". Rather than stacking such shows with hand-picked people that are pre-groomed to succeed, the networks deliberately cast them instead with diverse and obviously flawed personalities in the same way that malevolent pranksters will scatter roofing nails on a highway, or pass out condoms w/pin holes at college frat parties ... then they just turn on the cameras and wait for the inevitable trainwreck.

Take "Top Chef" ... instead of well rounded team of candidates they pick a neurotic chatterbox who's an emotionally fragile flamer, a talented bitch, a new-age vegan dot-head, a hispanic, a mother who dabbles in catering, a knowledgeable but pretentious sommellier-turned-chef, etc. It's like building a house designed to fall down.

It all makes sense when you realize that the producers WANT people to fail. They WANT backstabbing. They WANT personality conflicts. The Germans have a word for it ... Schadenfreude ... spectators taking venal pleasure in the misery/failure of others.

So much for "reality" ... in real life, people are groomed/hired to succeed.

[tollbaby]

Take "Top Chef" ... instead of well rounded team of candidates they pick a neurotic chatterbox who's an emotionally fragile flamer, a talented bitch, a new-age vegan dot-head, a hispanic, a mother who dabbles in catering, a knowledgeable but pretentious sommellier-turned-chef, etc. It's like building a house designed to fall down.

I get the new-age and the vegan, but what's a dot-head?

[Darb]

Dot-head ... that's uncouth slang for the symbolic red dot of the 3rd eye of enlightenment worn by followers of Hinduism.

Some new-age wannabees wear it as an affectation, even though they're not of the Hindi faith ... much to the annoyance of true followers. Madonna, for example, caused quite a stir for wearing one at the Grammy awards back after her Ray of light album {she also borrowed words from Hindi holy texts for her lyrics on track 8}. Other hollywood types have done similarly.

[daetara]

I'm not big on "reality shows". Rather than stacking such shows with hand-picked people that are pre-groomed to succeed, the networks deliberately cast them instead with diverse and obviously flawed personalities in the same way that malevolent pranksters will scatter roofing nails on a highway, or pass out condoms w/pin holes at college frat parties ... then they just turn on the cameras and wait for the inevitable trainwreck.
...

It all makes sense when you realize that the producers WANT people to fail. They WANT backstabbing. They WANT personality conflicts. The Germans have a word for it ... Schadenfreude ... spectators taking venal pleasure in the misery/failure of others.

So much for "reality" ... in real life, people are groomed/hired to succeed.

did you happen to see the espn reality show, back when it was on? "dream job" i think it was called. they seemed to have picked people who had a chance at succeeding, and there wasn't any back-stabbing and stuff that i can remember. it was actually really cool, cause you got a better idea of what goes on in a sports broadcast.

on the other hand, the winner from the first season hasn't been seen much.

[Darb]

Nope, didn't catch it. I generaly steer clear of reality shows. I only watched a few eps of top chef recently because (a) it happens to be on around the time I'm getting home and looking for something to watch, (b) I'm a culinary geek with a little catering experience, so it hits home a little.

[tollbaby]

I was afraid that's what it meant

[Darb]

Why the sad face ?

[tollbaby]

Don't worry about it. My own personal hang-ups, that's all.

[violetblue]

Last year's winners on Next Food Network Star did get a show, Party Line With the Hearty Boys, airing Sundays at 9:30/8:30c. I've only seen it once. I know, it's a terrible name. The PR department at FN needs to go back to the drawing board on that one.

I have not seen Top Chef either. But the contestants sound a lot like the personalities on FN's show. This last FN show, and Hell's Kitchen, are the only reality shows I have watched.

[violetblue]

So I've watched all the shows in the new season of Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen so far, and I'm not impressed with this year's contestants. I can't imagine how they were chosen as the finalists. The prize is to become an executive chef at a Las Vegas hotel restaurant, and none of them are ready for this job. The only one with any competency is a young woman of 25, and she would not be ready to handle a job like that if she did win.

I have seen a show of Ramsay's on BBC, something like Kitchen Disasters, where he goes in and tries to help failing restaurants turn themselves around. I have found this show to be much more realistic and fascinating.

[mccormack44]

It's called a mezzaluna …gadgets for people who don't know how to use a proper chef knife.

I saw this entry weeks ago and didn't pay much attention. Later I began to make a corned beef sandwich spread which my husband loves and got out my mezzaluna to prepare the celery.

I use about 3/4 cup of MINCED celery in this sandwich spread. I want the celery to be about the size of the pieces in the pickle relish which is also an ingredient. I find the mezzaluna much quicker for this type of mincing. OK, this makes it almost a one-use gadget, but I make this sandwich spread somewhere around 20 times a year, so a tool that saves me time and energy that often is worth it to me.

I also use it when mincing the vegetables for slow-cooker soup. I'm referring to the vegetables that are for flavoring and are supposed to cook away to thickening, NOT the vegetables that end up as part of the look of the soup. Slow cookers tend to cook vegetables to the crisp-tender stage, so if you want vegetable "slurry" you're better off with finely minced vegetables. Again, the mezzaluna makes this type of mincing quick and easy.

My mother's sister used to make a chili sauce that my sister and I still drool over, even though we had the job of peeling (skinning) a peck of so of tomatoes every summer. Aunt Olive used a mezzaluna to chop the celery and other vegetables which were the added ingredients for this chili sauce. I don't remember seeing her use it for anything else but this sort of big-batch cooking. This is really what I use it for also (although my batches are smaller).

A mezzaluna works better on a slightly curved surface rather than a flat surface. Mine came with a wooden slab with a "soup plate" shaped hollow in the surface. Aunt Olive used an unfinished wooden bowl which I can't find nowadays. The curve or her bowl was also very shallow, but it held more ingredients at a time than my slab does.

In short, I believe that the mezzaluna is a useful tool for fine mincing in fairly large qualities but that a knife is better for controlled cuts such as dicing and large chopping.

Sue

[Darb]

I meant no disrespect for people who love and swear by mezzalunas ... it was just good natured ribbing, from someone who prefers a chef knife for most chopping and mincing tasks where any sort of evenness is required.

The only other knife I use for rapid slicing is a paring knife, for sliced garlic and sliced mushrooms - I can hit a higher speed with that than with a chef knife. It takes a little practice, but you can build up a good up & down rat-a-tat-tat stroke that a big chef knife can't keep up with. I can usually hit 6-9 slices per second with it, with good control. I dont think it'd work for celery though, which is too fiberous for rapid cutting with a paring knife. I'd probably use a chef knife ... cut it into 4" long matchsticks of the desired width, then bunch em up and cross-chop en-mass into fine dice.

Aunflin, correct me if I'm wrong, but does 10 sec for fine burnois (1/16" dice) sound about right, for a lone stalk of celery ?