Recently, due to the desire in my house to have an Internet connection so fast that I worry that the monitor might literally catch on fire as I download things, I was blessed with cable television. And with it, the Food Network.
Having been without cable for several years, I am a novice when it comes to the Food Network. Oh, I've heard the names: Iron Chef, Naked Chef, Samurai Chef (I'm making this last one up, I think). But they're just names. I've no faces to put to them. So, as the deadline for this column approached, I thought that it was high time that I acquainted myself with this cable gem, which seems so suited to my tastes. I blocked off some time this week, procrastinated a little more from doing the immense amount of reading I'm behind on and sat down to immerse myself in televised culinary bliss.
Notebook in hand, I sit down to view. First up is a bakery-oriented show called, insipidly, \Sweet Dreams."" It is hosted by Gale Gand, a cross between Carmela Soprano and Martha Stewart, except with a heavy Midwestern accent. Gale tells us that she's going to show us how to make ""Potat-ah"" Focaccia Bread with Red Grapes (red grapes?!), as well as donut holes with ""potat-ah."" Gale is very excited about this prospect, and about potatoes. She also, inexplicably, pronounces the ""o"" in the plural ""potatoes."" But I digress. Gale, a flurry of activity, is ricing potatoes, mixing batter, and telling us to leave the skins on because they make ""gorgeous flecks"" in the focaccia and because, and I quote, ""They are nutritiously really good for you."" I spend the last half of the show confused, wondering if something could be unnutritiously really good for you. Maybe turning off Gale's show.
Gale and ""Sweet Dreams"" float airily away and regular guy Bobby Flay enters the fray (sorry, couldn't resist), hosting ""Hot Off the Grill"" with his Kelly Ripa-esque co-host Jacqui Malouf, who is bubbly, sassy and a real thorn in Bobby's side. Oh, that Jacqui! She also seems to know as much about food as George W. knows about tact. Maybe not even that much. She says things like, ""It's soup day, hahahaha!"" as Bobby roasts plantains for a Plantain and Sweet Potato Soup, which looks great, by the way. You find yourself wishing that Bobby would send her out to pick up ice cream or a fatal illness. But he never does. He just finishes the soup. She tries it. She squeals. I wonder if this Food Network thing was really such a good idea.
""Essence of Emeril"" comes on, hosted by Emeril Lagasse, possibly the most recognizable chef in America. All right, I think, now we're cooking (sorry, couldn't resist again). Emeril IS the Food Network. He was the first one to make it big. He, arguably, is responsible for the network's current popularity. He is loud, brash, sometimes obnoxious and always a better cook than you. Finally, I think, as I get ready for Emeril's culinary wizardry to erase Gale and Jacqui from my head.
Except he isn't Emeril. At least he isn't the Emeril I expected. No chef's whites, no big, loud personality. Just a guy, in a pretty nice shirt, cooking fine but eminently doable dishes on a subdued set with no audience.??
He almost seems a little uncomfortable, almost nervous. If you'd never seen him before (fat chance), you would think he had never really been on TV before. It is unsettling at first, but then, well, endearing. He's gone from Emeril, larger than life, to Emeril, regular guy who can REALLY cook.
He makes Black Bean Cakes with Chunky Guacamole, and Pan-Seared Salmon with Black Bean Relish. Both look like fine dishes and are also dishes anyone can make, or at least anyone who even marginally knows their way around a kitchen.
When he's finished, he takes the platters to the ubiquitous cooking show ""Dining Room,"" where audiences or co-hosts are normally taken to gush over the wondrous creations of the show's ""super chef"" host and sits down quietly to make a very attainable wine recommendation. Then he turns away from the camera, takes a bit of each dish, hunches over his plate and quietly tries them himself, seemingly oblivious to the cameras and sets around him. He looks for all the world like a chef in an empty restaurant doing the one thing, other than cooking, that all food lovers love to do: Eat, quietly, enjoying the creation they've just slaved over. It is a sublime moment.
What were the names of the hosts of those other shows?
