A Pop-Culture Addict First

It's been a gloomy, semi-cold day here and I've found myself laying on the couch under my down comforter and enjoying the laziness of an afternoon sipping coffee and watching cooking shows. What's so "first" about this for me: I've been watching PBS...and liking it.

Out of the people I hang around with, I'm usually lambasted as the one who could care less about NPR (I know, I know...I should care) and who turns my nose up at any kind of crunchy, granola mass media choices for the loud and flashy shallowness of E! or VH1. But, I was perfectly content to snuggle in with America's Test Kitchen, Check Please!, and Everyday Cooking. Since I've been looking for viable alternatives to most of the shows on the Food Network which have become so carnivalized since their inception, I was overjoyed to find just what I was looking for on WTTW11. So, let me give a rundown of the actual shows I watched today:

America's Test Kitchen: This is a great alternative to 30 Minute Meals (and don't we all deserve one?). What they do is present one meal that the test kitchen has perfected over several trials. What I really appreciated is that they break down what can seem like very complicated recipes into very simple steps and make great suggestions on how to make it simply but still retain the "best it can be" quality. Extra special is a 10 minute segment in the middle where they do a taste test of a particular product featured in the recipe. Informative and practical. Warning: Of all the episodes I've seen (5), I've never seen a vegetarian dish featured. But, the cooking tips and the way they teach working with flavors could probably translate into vegetarian meals.


Real Simple: Alright, confession: this is not a cooking show. But it's one of those "lifestyle shows" that's good brain candy. The episode I saw featured segments on stenciling, whether or not price clubs are worth it, and other "lifestyle" artsy-craftsy lessons. While not deep or really showing anything new, it seems to capture the essence of the "Real Simple" magazine which I love but cannot afford at a cover price that's nearly $5. These are three lovely people (obviously not paid for their brainpower) but willing to relate to me the virtues of table-scaping. A GREAT and BETTER alternative to Stupid Cooking with Sandra Lee, as it features neither stupid cooking nor Sandra Lee.

Everyday Food: Exec-Produced by Martha Stewart(grrrr), this show is a nice conglomeration of what you might find on 30 Minute Meals, Barefoot Contessa, Tyler's Ultimate, and any other of the barrage of semi-annoying shows the Food Network offers. Again, very simple recipes that end up looking really elegant. This cast mixes up entrees, appetizers, and dessert recipes nicely and run the gamut from country fried chicken to the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever. It's just a nice show to watch and the recipes are easy to replicate.

Personally, I think the only show on Food Network that will not be replicated anywhere else is Alton Brown's Good Eats, which I will still happily tune in for at every chance I get.

And, while I love the fact that PBS now offers a quasi-food network feast on Saturdays, I have to wonder how much this means that PBS is changing its original oatey, crunchy granola platform to be able to compete with flashier networks. PBS has always been the home for some tie to more intellectual, certainly high(er) culture, efforts offered to everyone who has a television. While there are 8 ESPN channels, there's always been only one PBS with a distinctive ability to fill a small yet important niche in local programming that will never include a discussion of Britney Spears or "super simple, spicey and savory, savvy suppers" touted by a Barbie-doll proportioned know-nothing. So, I feel a little conflicted about my joy that now their shows are mostly produced by the people and companies that it was able to distinguish itself from for so long. Even though they still offer programming without commercials (a fact that overjoyed me to my core) what does that mean when the programming itself turns decidedly commercial?

Aw, hell...I'm still watching...and I'm telling all my pop culture junkies to do the same.

Sandra Lee is a Master Huckster

Every now and then, in the afternoons, I put The Food Network on as background noise while I'm accomplishing great things. I usually pick up the schedule with Sandra Lee, the brilliant mind behind "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee" which happens to usually be a misnomer as this show is light on cooking and heavy on what we in the academic world call plagiarism. So it's with food...same difference.

In one half-hour, Sandra Lee will manage to make thoroughly unappetizing and, according to the ratings on www.foodtv.com, nearly impossible to re-create recipes using her "30% fresh ingredients, 70% store-bought" formula. She's also the woman who single-handedly forced the word "table-scape" into the public lexicon and re-invented the common usage of the word "embellishment." With her bizarrely proportioned figure (she resembles a Barbie Doll--no joke) and just as equally bizarre kitchen that always matches the type of food she's making, she is the First Lady of semi-authentic cuisine. Which is where I start to go all academic on the Food Network.

More so than ever, especially the rise of the network's own show "The Next Food Network Star," this network is less about cooking and more about some "hook" used by hosts who are not really cooking stars at all but really saavy business men and women who can sell the public an idea. Rachael Ray cooks dinner in 30 minutes, making sure to abbreviate EVOO and GB (garbage bowl) to "save time." Paula Dean (oh lord) makes down-home Southern cookin' y'all, whippin' up desserts and dishes that all include 5 pounds of butter and friend pork fat. Now her sons, Jaime and Bobby, travel the country and...well, eat. We can really be sure what they're contribution is (Bobby's only reasonable connection to food is that he's nice eye candy). Ina Garten desperately wanting to be French, makes inappropriately heavy lunch and dinner combinations and then asks her poor-but-rich invited guests from the Hamptons how good everything is, following up the inquiry with a weird squirrelly laugh. Robin Miller dresses up left-overs for five days. In my family, that would equal a mutiny of seismic proportions. And in the end how many of these fine chefs actually have a culinary career? None...because they're not chefs. In fact, they're not even experts. Their just people with a schtick and a knife (and Sandra Lee doesn't even have a knife.)

Where are the chefs? Bobby Flay, Michael Chiarello, Mario Batali, Giada DiLaurentiis, Alton Brown, Tyler Florence, Dave Lieberman, and Emeril (god love him) are legitimate. Most, however, have been consigned to time-slots that appeal only to those who are on break during the third-shift (Dave Lieberman doesn't even have a regular show...he's now only on the web). A glaring exception: Giada gets a lot of air time and for what I and my male friends insist are two very good reasons (just watch her show once and you'll know). Even if they get decent air-time, they're selling out: Emeril thinks he can sell toothpaste (BAM!) and act on a sitcom. Just the idea is not funny. Tyler Florence now makes quasi-delicious, mediocre and oft-recreated-on-the-line things for Applebees of all crappy chain restaurants.

I pine for the days before Marc Summers (cloying and cheesy host of "Unwrapped") got his grubby paws on the Food Network; these days were ruled by Ming Tsai, Sarah Moulton, and the Two Hot Tamales (Sue Finneger and Susan Millikan). Even Anthony Bourdain was on the network for about five minutes. They weren't catchy, they didn't have little copyrighted or mass-marketed sayings, and they didn't wear low cut t-shirts to make Arugula pesto. When these people told you why you were doing something, you believed them. Why? Because they're professionals, they own their own restaurants, and they KNOW about FOOD. They've earned the right to their authority on the topic of food. Sandra Lee belongs on the Apprentice or QVC...not the Food Network. Why? Because she just made and proclaimed the deliciousness of a drink involving peach schnapps, club soda, and ice cream that just happened to match perfectly with her Asian-inspired tablescape. I don't think Peach Schnapps has anything to do with Asia and making me believe that it does...well, that's the work of a saleswoman...not a chef.