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#1 Oct 01 2014 at 5:16 PM Rating: Good
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Ok. I like watching the Food Network. Some shows are entertaining. Some are informational. But this one? WTH?

I get it. It's a competition style show, but instead of competent chefs being forced to create tasty and attractive food while under a clock and with variable restrictions/requirements/whatever, we have people making cupcakes. With a theme. And ridiculous amounts of time. That's it. Now, starting out with the fact that I'm not a huge cupcake fan (they rank well below bagels and doughnuts in terms of yummy baked(ish) snacks I might eat), my biggest complaint with the show isn't the content, but the fact that it appears that people who make cupcakes are relatively incompetent at actually making cupcakes.

It seems like every single episode I watch, there's at least one team in each round that makes some kind of monumental mistake. I'm not talking about putting together an experimental mix of flavors that doesn't work well or that results in an unintended texture or what have you. No. I'm talking about forgetting basic things required to make a cupcake. Like putting flour, or eggs, or water, or sugar in the damn things. Every. Single. Time. Maybe this is the normal level of competence among bakers and this explains the high prices (how many batches do you suppose they toss out before getting your cake right?). Maybe this is just something about those who go on the show? Dunno.

Seriously drives me crazy though. It's not like I go out of my way to watch it, but every once in awhile, it'll be on, and I'll say "Maybe this time it wont be chock full of incompetent people"? Nope. Hasn't happened yet. I'm actually starting to suspect that they intentionally have a ringer team or two in there, who's whole job is to up the "drama" of the show by giving us a scene where they look at their dough and frantically state "it's not right! Something's wrong with this dough. Did we forget <insert basic cupcake ingredient here>?". To be fair, if they didn't have that drama, it would be an even more monumentally boring show than it already is. I mean, it's baking. Which basically involves mixing things in a bowl and putting it in an oven and then standing around waiting. I suppose that's going to automatically rank lower on the excitement scale compared to shows where people actually actively cook things.


Whew! Got that off my chest. You can now return to your regularly scheduled Asylum.
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#2 Oct 01 2014 at 5:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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I stopped watching the food network as I find it's all stupid reality TV shows these days. I like occasional iron chef or chopped episodes, but it seemed that was all there was, and most emphasized drama that has nothing to do with food.
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#3 Oct 01 2014 at 6:15 PM Rating: Good
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I'll watch Good Eats reruns on the weekend. And occasionally I'll watch Guy's Diners Driveins and Dives (cause they run it all the time). Iron Chef and Chopped on occasion, if I'm flipping and nothing else is on. Usually at night before I go to bed.

I don't care for the reality style shows. And the "hot" one, Giada, has become kind of "Meh", her appeal has worn off. The way she over enunciates any Italian word on her shows irritates me.
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#4 Oct 01 2014 at 6:40 PM Rating: Decent
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The only food-related tv programming I watch is Helen Cavallo's That's Fresh bits between shows on Disney Jr. Haven't actually made anything I've seen, but I just fantasize about slathering her in olive oil and licking it off.
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#5 Oct 01 2014 at 6:56 PM Rating: Decent
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I've been watching Good Eats reruns recently as well. They're pretty darn good. Although I do have to take exception to his taco episode. For someone who actually grew up in LA, he spent a lot of time and effort to reproduce the kind of taco I'd expect someone from say Indiana to make for taco night, complete with store bought shells and taco seasoning. Blech. Then again, his show is usually more about the methods of cooking and clever tools for doing so than the finished product itself, so maybe that's not to surprising.

Chopped and Iron chef are pretty good. Although sometimes the competition shows get a bit stale. I also like shows where they actually show you the ingredients and recipes for the food. Well, some of the time. And totally depending on the person in the show. I initially could not stand Fieri, but now I actually do enjoy his shows. Of course, you totally have to take his endorsement of the food on DDD with a grain of salt. It's pretty obvious that his job is to say something good about any food he eats. But you can usually read between the lines to tell which foods are really good, and which ones he has to stretch to find positive descriptions for.

It's the channel that I usually have my cable box set to because usually (except for the aforementioned Cupcake Wars) anything that's on when I flip the TV on will be at least something I can have going on that wont annoy me. Oh. Not really a fan of the various long term competition shows though (next food network star, great food truck race, etc). It's just not a genre that I'll follow as a show. Just something I'll flip on and if what's on at the moment interests me, I'll watch it for a bit.
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#6 Oct 01 2014 at 8:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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Oh but in Canada, they have Donut Showdown. Maybe you'd like that better.

Alton Brown is lovable, but occasionally ******* crazy. I'm not spending 24 hours making pizza dough - it's supposed to be a convenience food ffs. Also, I clearly remember throwing something at the TV one day when he said he would be right back from commercial and would show me a quick and easy way to freeze berries (I'd JUST been strawberry picking) so that they wouldn't get all mushy. I gathered my berries and waited in anticipation...

Alton Brown: Ok, so if you want to freeze the berries, you hull them, wash them, dry them, yada yada..
Me: YES! Check Check Check!
Alton Brown: Next, get a cooler!
Me: Awesome, I TOTALLY HAVE A COOLER!
Alton Brown: Now arrange your berries around in a circle and leave an hole in the middle...
Me: Ok!
Alton Brown: Now yet your dry ice...
Me: **** YOU ALTON BROWN! RIGHT IN THE EAR!!

Nexa
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#7 Oct 01 2014 at 8:06 PM Rating: Good
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They don't show the Good Eats reruns often enough... On the weekend I think they show two episodes around noon. Beyond that I don't see any during prime time, just massive marathons of Guy's DDD.

And I find that gal who hosts "******** Kitchen" to be annoying. Can't stand watching that one.

I find myself watching Travel Channel various food shows more often than Food/Cooking channel these days.
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#8 Oct 01 2014 at 8:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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I like that new MInd of a Chef show...but I don't know what channel it's on...I don't get cable.

Nexa
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#9 Oct 01 2014 at 8:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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I really enjoyed Chef at Home back in the day, did you get that in the US? It was really good because it focused on flavour ideas and how to use existing knowledge to come up with new ideas or modify existing things you knew how to make.
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#10 Oct 01 2014 at 8:17 PM Rating: Excellent
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Nexa wrote:
I like that new MInd of a Chef show...but I don't know what channel it's on...I don't get cable.

Nexa

I love anything involving Anthony Bourdain.
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#11 Oct 01 2014 at 8:37 PM Rating: Decent
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I tried watching Cupcake Wars once, but I just can't stand the host. He sounds like his balls haven't dropped yet. Maybe it's because I have an extremely deep voice, but I just can't take men with high pitched voices seriously. That french judge isn't much better.

I do rather enjoy the new show that Alton Brown is hosting, Cutthroat Kitchen. It can be amusing to see what sort of sabotages they come up with. Far too many of them involve just replacing the main ingredient with a low quality counterpart, but some of the are pretty good.

Edited, Oct 1st 2014 10:39pm by Turin
#12 Oct 01 2014 at 8:57 PM Rating: Good
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I'm actually starting to suspect that they intentionally have a ringer team or two in there

Starting? Starting to suspect that reality TV might actually be lazily scripted TV? Starting? I can sort of see how the GOP platform makes sense to you know. I mean, I'm starting to suspect that I can.
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#13 Oct 01 2014 at 9:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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Smasharoo wrote:
I'm actually starting to suspect that they intentionally have a ringer team or two in there

Starting? Starting to suspect that reality TV might actually be lazily scripted TV? Starting? I can sort of see how the GOP platform makes sense to you know. I mean, I'm starting to suspect that I can.


Geez Smash. Take off your caffeinated panties and take a chill pill.
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#14 Oct 01 2014 at 9:30 PM Rating: Default
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Cupcake wars is suspect because in every episode, somehow the final cupcake is always placed in the final 2 seconds. /phew.. Just in time
#15 Oct 01 2014 at 11:43 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I've been watching Good Eats reruns recently as well. They're pretty darn good. Although I do have to take exception to his taco episode. For someone who actually grew up in LA, he spent a lot of time and effort to reproduce the kind of taco I'd expect someone from say Indiana to make for taco night, complete with store bought shells and taco seasoning. Blech. Then again, his show is usually more about the methods of cooking and clever tools for doing so than the finished product itself, so maybe that's not to surprising.
Store bought shells? It's been a while since I last saw that episode, but I remember him using aluminum foil to shape corn tortillas into a shell. He also had an earlier episode on making your own corn tortillas, so I can't imagine he didn't mention that as well. And he usually makes his own spice blends. Edit: Yeah, he made his own. And those aren't store bought shells. Sadly, the clip cuts off the part where he eschews the cheddar for more traditional cheeses.

The episode is on Youtube, but now that Food Network has their own channel, it'd cost me $2 to see it and I don't wanna pay just to look it up.

Turin wrote:
I do rather enjoy the new show that Alton Brown is hosting, Cutthroat Kitchen. It can be amusing to see what sort of sabotages they come up with. Far too many of them involve just replacing the main ingredient with a low quality counterpart, but some of the are pretty good.
I love that show. Not only are some of the sabotages entertaining, but the way Alton Brown gets that "kid in a candy store" delightfully evil face as he describes them amuses me greatly.


Edited, Oct 1st 2014 11:47pm by Poldaran
#16 Oct 02 2014 at 5:40 AM Rating: Decent
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Part of Gbaji's psychosis is that his memory alters all information he takes in and does so in a way that he can feel better about himself.

You can see the seasoning being made about halfway through. I guess he didn't dry ocean water for salt or make corn starch from scratch, but it doesn't resemble "store bought seasoning" in basically any way. Clip doesn't include the shells, but he makes them from hand out of corn tortillas. I don't remember if he made the tortillas or bought them. I'd assume bought them. Obviously not the same as the implication that he bought an "Old ElPasso" taco kit with a bag of powder and pre formed taco shells.



Edited, Oct 2nd 2014 7:41am by Smasharoo
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#17 Oct 02 2014 at 6:28 AM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
I don't remember if he made the tortillas or bought them. I'd assume bought them.
I think he said in the tortilla episode that when he's feeling lazy, he goes over to the local tortilla factory and buys some. Which is what I do when I'm not feeling lazy. I think that one's still on my DVR. If I can manage to get home before my roommate and get the living room TV, I'll double check.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2014 6:29am by Poldaran
#18 Oct 02 2014 at 7:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Take off your caffeinated panties

I chuckled.

I don't watch any cooking shows mainly because I don't watch much TV at all. Cooking competition shows seem strange to me since the audience has no way to really have an opinion on the product. Granted I'm not qualified to judge a dress, dance, special effects puppet, modeling shoot or someone's singing either but at least I can experience much of what the judges are experiencing. But, hey, more power to those who watch 'em. There's always another channel on.
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#19 Oct 02 2014 at 8:04 AM Rating: Good
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I liked the Two Fat Ladies, but it was more for the entertainment value than the cooking stuffs.

I don't like cupcakes in general, so I don't get the cupcake fad. I understand it has pretty much come to it's fad fated conclusion.
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#20 Oct 02 2014 at 8:07 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:


Geez Smash. Take off your caffeinated panties and take a chill pill.


Chill panties could be an instant marketing success.




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#21 Oct 02 2014 at 8:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
I don't watch any cooking shows mainly because I don't watch much TV at all. Cooking competition shows seem strange to me since the audience has no way to really have an opinion on the product. Granted I'm not qualified to judge a dress, dance, special effects puppet, modeling shoot or someone's singing either but at least I can experience much of what the judges are experiencing. But, hey, more power to those who watch 'em. There's always another channel on.

That's what I love about Cutthroat Kitchen. You may not be able to taste the food, but you can still enjoy the pain on a chef's face as he has to cook while wearing lobster claw oven mitts and shackled to another chef.
#22 Oct 02 2014 at 9:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Take off your caffeinated panties

I chuckled.
I just rated gbaji up to excellent. I'm not sure I ever thought I'd write that, mostly because that whole thing rests on other people rating him up to good first, and I'm so lazy with the buttons. This is too much, I need to go sit down for a while.

I have nothing else to add to this conversation anyway. T.V. watching this time of year consists of a weekly football game or two. Then that will end and I'll give back control of the T.V. to the kids for 8 months or so.
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#23 Oct 02 2014 at 10:47 AM Rating: Good
I watch Chopped mostly because it's on when I go to the gym in early evening. I like it. I get exposed to new ingredients and new cooking techniques. You can also look up the chefs that compete, find their restaurants, and go eat there. I've actually gone to a couple of the Atlanta restaurants.

And unlike Cupcake Wars, there are plenty of times when the chefs mess up and don't get the stuff on the plate at the last second. (And get dinged for it.)

I think the problem is that some of the cupcake chefs are true novices. They've had no formal training, they just baked cakes out of pre-mixed boxes, and then jumped on the cupcake store bandwagon a few years ago when it really became a thing. The TV show producers actually solicit the stores to come compete, so a novice baker could be flattered and get in over their head real fast... Also, scaling up recipes from "small batch of a dozen" to "one thousand" requires a bit more on-the-fly math than the average small business owner can do without a spreadsheet. I've noticed that it tends to be the veterans or formally trained bakers that win.
#24 Oct 02 2014 at 11:48 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Now, starting out with the fact that I'm not a huge cupcake fan (they rank well below bagels and doughnuts in terms of yummy baked(ish) snacks I might eat)
You certainly are entitled to your opinion, and I am a big bagel lover. But you rank doughnuts ahead of cupcakes?
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Nexa wrote:
I like that new MInd of a Chef show...but I don't know what channel it's on...I don't get cable.

Nexa

I love anything involving Anthony Bourdain.
I just heard him on WNYC this morning (local PBS radio station) and I lost a scintilla of respect for him. He was talking about the Bronx and made an off-hand statement about HipHop starting in the Bronx, and the host said, "I think Queens would like to have a word with you about that." Bourdain insisted, incorrectly in my opinion, that HipHop got its start in the Bronx.

But his main point was very interesting. It was about a group in the Bronx of about 200,000 that can be traced back to the shipwreck of a slaver and the survivors intermarrying with the local indigenous population. Of course, he was mainly speaking about the great food they are serving up today.


Edit for clarification: I don't think he meant the slaver shipwrecked off the coast of the Bronx.



Edited, Oct 2nd 2014 1:54pm by cynyck
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#25 Oct 02 2014 at 12:38 PM Rating: Good
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I used to watch Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. That was an ok show. But then somewhere along the line he just got really full of himself and his entertainment value nose-dived.

I've not seen Mind of a Chef.
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#26 Oct 02 2014 at 2:10 PM Rating: Decent
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I've been watching Good Eats reruns recently as well. They're pretty darn good. Although I do have to take exception to his taco episode. For someone who actually grew up in LA, he spent a lot of time and effort to reproduce the kind of taco I'd expect someone from say Indiana to make for taco night, complete with store bought shells and taco seasoning. Blech. Then again, his show is usually more about the methods of cooking and clever tools for doing so than the finished product itself, so maybe that's not to surprising.
Store bought shells? It's been a while since I last saw that episode, but I remember him using aluminum foil to shape corn tortillas into a shell. He also had an earlier episode on making your own corn tortillas, so I can't imagine he didn't mention that as well. And he usually makes his own spice blends.


Hah. Not at all what I meant. He reproduced the kind of tacos you'd get if you went to the store and bought shells and a packet of taco seasoning. He didn't actually buy store bought shells and seasoning, he just spent a lot of time making tacos that looked like he did. Sorry that this wasn't clear in my initial post. I don't know of anyone who eats taco shells with rounded bottoms (much less spends any effort to make them that way). Ask for them to be made that way and you'll likely be laughed at as some foolish gringo who thinks taco shells are supposed to be like the crappy ones you buy in the store.

The seasoning mix he made was also designed to produce a result that's somewhat similar to what you'd get in a taco seasoning package (presumably better, but that's not the point). What most people who don't live anywhere near the southern US border tend to not realize is that most tacos made in or near Mexico aren't actually seasoned that much. One of the first things that visitors will comment on when they eat at some Mexican food place around here is how it doesn't taste anything like what they thought Mexican food tastes like. Hence why I thought it strange that Alton was basically replicating that flavor profile.

That and he didn't bother to add any other ingredients on his taco (although he at least had some set aside that could have been added). And I'm reasonably certain he didn't make any guacamole at all. I get that his show is designed to appeal to a wide audience, and for much of that audience the kind of taco he made is what they're used to eating and thinking of as a taco, but it was a bit jarring for me. That's all I was saying.




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Turin wrote:
I do rather enjoy the new show that Alton Brown is hosting, Cutthroat Kitchen. It can be amusing to see what sort of sabotages they come up with. Far too many of them involve just replacing the main ingredient with a low quality counterpart, but some of the are pretty good.
I love that show. Not only are some of the sabotages entertaining, but the way Alton Brown gets that "kid in a candy store" delightfully evil face as he describes them amuses me greatly.


Love that show too. He's having way way way too much fun.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2014 3:38pm by gbaji
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