The Alton Brown Appreciation Thread - Page 2

What, me? No, I'm a perfect angel. I would like a slushie, though.

I can't even type Bobby Flay's name without my teeth grinding. I would gladly endure Racheal Ray 24/7 if the Food Network would just wrap Flay in chains and toss him off the Staten Island Ferry. What charm he once had has been expended in his endless appearances on an endless number of FN shows. And I just don't get the tough guy persona from a little ferret-like, Howdy-Doody-looking homunculus. I was hoping that he'd get shanked by his rival on the "cupcake" edition of Throwdown, but no such luck. Just waiting for the day.

You'd have to be sure to sneak up on him real quiet-like, though. If he hears you coming, you've made a date with Mr. Piano Wire.

You can't have a slushie. You're an Elite Food Snob, remember? Sheesh...

Irish don't strangle people with piano wire. He'd bareknuckle box the guy through SoHo, Quiet Man style.

Throwdown is such a perfect show for him. I mean, the basic premise is to take the pinnacle of some chef's career and embarrass him/her on TV. The donut guy was so pissed I thought the he was going to call on the Drag-Queen army to pound Flay into swiss cheese with their stilettos.

It actually does, he just exectuted it poorly.

Huge Alton fan, but I cook more Giada food than anything else. Paula has some great recipes, but Christ, I'm fat enough already. As has been said, Batlai is fun to watch and I would love to try his food, but it's way cost prohibitive for experimentation.

I would be willing to tackle Flay into a giant blender filled with chipotle peppers, garlic, chopped cilantro, honey and oil, even if it meant being pureed myself.

Those donuts looked fucking delicious though. The cupcake episode was almost more than I could take.

Don't forget blue corn. Everything gets blue corn.

My wife made a batch of the Red Velvet Cupcakes from the challenger's recipe. Truly coma inducing.

Not to mention Bobby has that hand-picked team of New York chefs to help him try to get a leg up on the competition, and he prepares well in advance, and then just basically ambushes the unsuspecting victims.

But, to his credit, he came off much more likeable in a recent special which featured a bunch of the Food Network personalities appearing at a food and wine festival in Miami. He and Alton were actually the standouts of that one.

Apologist.

SSSHHH! He's listening...

====)~
( l )

heh.

I like Flay for the same reason I like Deion Sanders. He talks a lot of game, but fuck if he doesn't prove himself right most of the time.

he is certainly a foody genius, but count me in as one of those who can't stand him. I find morbidly unfunny plus I think I just hate TV presenters with practiced "I'm wacky" acts on principle. as Mr. Sodium mentioned, America's Test Kitchen is a great show, and in my honest opinion just as exhaustively researched yet far more tolerable.

someone else brought up Next Food Network Star... that was fun to watch but I wanted the one with the tits to win her own show, that way her and Giada could have perhaps gotten into some kind of bizarre and escalating cleavage oneupmanship battle, the upside to which would have been us viewers getting enough titty with our tagliatelli to make grandpa Dino DeLaurentiis formally recant his King Kong remake.

I'm familiar with most Food Network stuff because it makes good background noise during the day, plus I don't always have control over the TV remote anyway and people I live with love the cooking shows. my favorite show right now is Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Guy Fieri is watchable and a good match for this kind of show, plus I want to try ALL those places he visits. love a good greasy spoon.

Nope, he's a d-bag.

He may be the worst, besides Sandra Lee.

We call him "the gay panic chef," since everything on his show from the type of food he cooks to his dimwitted pals who don't even know how to hold knives correctly to the conspicuously placed "band practice space" in the background seem designed to make the audience continually aware that he's A Guy and not some fruity pastry maker or somethin' faggy like that.

Also, all of his food looks the same. I've seen a few episodes, and it's all shit that any moron could figure out. Hmmm... adding barbecue sauce to cooked meat equals barbecue!!!

I agree with otisthecat and DaveB. Total douche. It pains me because I really like hearing about Mom & Pop joints around the country, but he is so annoying and I can't stand it when people don't properly pronounce 'chorizo' or 'jalapeno.'

Fieri's cooking show is pretty obviously still trying to find its place in the world, he does much better on the one about diners. His personality on that show is the right mix of easygoing yet enthusiastic. He's genuinely curious about the food, he gets a good rapport going with the people he visits, and he makes me as a viewer want to go there.

is he a "d-bag"? I dunno, I mean he doesn't try way too hard, he doesn't put on some bullshit actively annoying anal retentive knowitall/office clown act, and to my knowledge he's never worked with props. basically, he's not Julia Childs crossed with a sub-Gallagher zany schtick comedian crossed with Tony Shalhoub's Monk. which is nice. having said that, he'll never replace my favourite travel & taste show host, the excellent Mark DeCarlo.

I think the thing to be learned is that just because you can teach people neat cooking tips and tricks, doesn't mean you should be on TV (if so then my grandmother would have her own show). write a book, man.

also, no Barefoot Contessa fans here?

My favorite cooking shows are Ming Tsai's, who isn't even on Food Network anymore, Mario's and Giada's. If you search for Tsai's older recipes on foodtv.com, they are amazing. His Asian Slaw is one of the best I've ever had.

No.

yes, Simply Ming is great.

but if we're talking favourite cooking show period, Food Network or no, mine would have to be Daisy Cooks! with Daisy Martinez. She's got tons of real personality, she's sassy, she's funny, she knows her shit inside and out, and most importantly her food is awesome.

I wonder if Food Network ever courted her.

I've got the cookbook she put out last year, and I like it because the recipes are pretty simple, and they're really good. The greatest thing about her show is listening to the music they play when she's not talking. It's like porn music.

I used to not like Bobby Flay, but now he's one of my favorites. I love when he does Iron Chef and watch Throwdown whenever I can.

I also love "Dinner: Impossible". I'm waiting for Chef Robert to get frustrated enough to snap some sous chef's neck because he burned a batch of tarts.

Everyday Italian = Food Porn

I was watching Giada's Weekend Getaways shortly after it premiered and there was a moment in her visit to Miami (I think) where they showed her in a bathing suit. The heavens opened wide on that one and I about fell out of my chair.

As for Alton, I sometimes find it hard to sit through an entire episode of Good Eats, due to the pacing, but I've enjoyed him on Iron Chef America and Feasting on Asphalt. His voracious knowledge of food history and origin is amazing.

And check out this interesting blurb I found on his Wikipedia entry.

I'd rather see Lidia of PBS' Lidia Cooks fame-


Can't you just imagine those meatballs in a bikini top?
MANGIA!

I was actually more surprised to know he was a born-again Christian.

And I would rather see Nigella Lawson in a bikini, instead of this old monster of your's Bob.

Also, for those fans and non-fans of Mario Batali, it seems he won't be returning to the Food Network after the current season.

More info here:
http://www.slashfood.com/2007/09/05/...-food-network/

But, he's doing a new column over at SeriousEats.com:
http://www.seriouseats.com/user/profile/Mario%20Batali

DI is a new favorite in our household. Chef Robert must spend all his time not in the kitchen pumping iron...or the dead bodies of the sous chefs he has already murdered. Either way he's easily putting up 300 lbs, or one Mario Batali.

I was soooo hoping he was going to snap and walk around like Godzilla crushing all the kids when he did the food for the Spelling Bee. I'm convinced that the show is a bit of a ruse because there is no way some of those groups would entirely rely on him under the time estimates given. I bet they have another caterer on call and a few hours before his time is up they see if he'll meet the goal or else they call in a backup.

I miss Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.

I can understand not liking Brown, but at least his act is unabashedly an act. Like Justin said, sorta like Mr. Wizard with food. There's a world of difference between that and somebody like Fieri, who is trying to be a straightforword, natural host, but comes off like a total phony. He'd be more at home in an infomercial with one of those bowtie wearing British dudes.

As for the Barefoot Contessa, she's like Martha Stewart's chubby sister. I don't know if the Hamptons are a Stepford-esque community where all the women talk like robots, or if it's just that both of these women probably need a couple martinis and a half a valium to function; but if listening to them talk about centerpieces didn't put me to fucking sleep I might be tempted to hurt somebody.

Not to mention the fact that you pick up all kinds of helpful information about how cooking works from a scientific standpoint on Brown's show, and, on Fieri's, you learn that barbecue sauce makes things taste barbecue-y.

My mom is a dietitian and a fantastic cook, who watches Food Network all day long (she's retired), and that Barefoot Contessa show is the only one she really doesn't like. She's not too fond of Sandra Lee either.

If I missed it in reading this thread I apologize, but 83 posts and no one has brought up the fact that the man smoked an entire salmon in a freakin' cardboard box?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMk-y...elated&search=

Julia Child now there was a cook you don't mess with. The lady was a spy in WWII.

Make this, eat it and be happy:
http://link.toolbot.com/foodnetwork.com/90985

I enjoy Good Eats and I have good luck with a few of his recipes. I really enjoyed Feating on Asphalt. I liked the premise of the show and they seemed to execute it pretty well. I think when they stopped and had BBQ on pancakes that it was an inspired moment. I also really want a BMW motorcycle now.

Why would anyone be a fan of Sandra Lee? I had a class cancelled one day and came home early, flipped on the TV in the afternoon and proceeded to watch a woman take prepackaged hot dogs out of the package, boil them, put them on buns and pour canned chili on them.

"What on Earth?" I asked myself. "Surely Food Network isn't paying her to do this."

I forgot about it and moved on, until a similar scenario occured and I again watched her make a meal that featured store bought potato salad. At this point, I was quite frankly amazed. I set up my DVR to record her show, because I refused to believe that this was all she did.

Wrong!

I sat in amazement as I watched this obviously out-of-her-depth woman tell us how to make: Sandwiches with pre-packaged roast beef, corn dogs, and my personal favorite, chili fries with canned chili and frozen fries.

How can a person have a cooking show when their "cooking" consists of buying stuff from the store and serving as is, or at most heating it up in the stove?

What's more, a quick search on her reveals that in the 90's she pimped some curtain device on QVC with Florence Henderson. She did take a two week cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu, but admits to having quit two days into the course.

Her sole appeal, if you can even call it that, is that she looks like a soccer mom on the verge of snapping and driving her SUV through a guard rail and into a ravine while five or so kids scream in terror. If her show were aired live, you'd be convinced she'd grab a knife, stab herself in the heart and scream "Damn these barren ovaries!"

Anthony Bourdain may be a douche, but him calling her "Betty Crocker after a weekend of huffing crack." is fucking awesome.

Sandra Lee may be the worse offender culinarily speaking, but that Quick Fix Meals woman is almost as bad. Honestly I can't decide who is worse. Why the fuck does her show theme have lyrics?

At least Robin Miller (Quick-Fix lady) actually cooks things, though, really, just barely.

My Sandra Lee story: one afternoon, I was doing some cleaning in the living room which means, of course, I had the Food Network on. Sandra Lee came on, and, as I was occupied, I didn't change it. She was making either a Thanksgiving dinner (sweet Jesus) or a fall-themed meal, I can't recall which. So she announces that she wants to respect the proud tradition of the native peoples in America by making one of their dishes - a corn pudding. She goes on at some length about native peoples and how beautiful their culture was (was!) and then she refocuses, gives a big smile, and says "Okay, so first you want to open up a package of instant butterscotch pudding..."

I had to sit down for a while.

You mean Robin Miller? I watch her show occasionally for the pure fact that I like the way she takes the main part of a meal and saves it and portions it out into 2-3 more meals for the week. When you're cooking for the family, stuff like that is helpful. I get stuff from the 30-minute meals for the same reason although RR's portion sizes are sometimes insane. In one of her cookbooks, she tells you to pull out like 5 lbs. of ground beef for like 3 hamburgers.

If by douche you mean awesome, then yeah, he's that. He's clearly aware that he's not the greatest chef. He will praise those deserving of it (there are many), but he won't pull any punches if there's something mediocre around. Rachel Ray or Sandra Lee deserves the scorn they get as they make jello and call it "exotic fruit jelly".

And Bourdain is coming to town... and I just got tickets for the B-day. A 1-1/2 hour show and his new book is included in the pretty low price. That should be entertaining.

I'm a little envious. I never got the impression that he was a bad chef, but that he's perhaps a little more humble than some of the other celebrity chef types and recognizes the truly great. I'm not sure if he's necessarily the guy I'd want cooking my meals (though I wouldn't complain), but he'd be near the top of my list of people I'd want telling me where I should eat and what I should eat there. And how smashed I should get to enjoy the particular meal, of course.

He's not a bad chef (a friend of mine ate at Les Halles while he was in-house cooking a few years back) at all, in fact he's apparently great, and he's really good with the bistro-style he does.

Have you read Kitchen Confidential? While the short-lived TV series was hilarious, the book is even better, mixing his own stories with chapters about different aspects of the restaurant business. His other books and his Cook's Tour/No reservations series are pretty great. The Montreal recommendation he did really is one of the top spot in the city.

Yeah, his books are really what sold me on the guy. No Reservations is just the cherry on top. Or, as he'd probably have it, the dollop of savory squid ink on the souffle of cow brain or something.

Sandra Brown's whole schtick is using store-bought items to cook with, so you're not making stuff from scratch (that's why it's called "Almost Homemade"). It's still pretty tacky, but that's her thing.

It took me two or three episodes to notice that Giada was cooking anything.

And for old school cooking, you can keep Julia Child, give me the Cookin' Cajun Justin Wilson any day of the week.

I understand that that's her shtick. She's still the devil.

BLASPHEMY!

I liked Justin Wilson's personality, I suppose, but a little of his schtick went a looooong way. And seriously, did he HAVE to do that stupid thing where he pours salt in the palm of his hand, then pours it into a teaspoon, and holds it up with that aw-shucks grin and says "SEE! I tol' ya'll it wuz a teaspoon!" every single episode?

Hell, I'd take the Galloping Gourmet over Justin Wilson. Especially in the early days when the Gourmet was drunk on the set all the time...

Yes, but Wilson would cast that bayou voodoo on you if you didn't watch. Our TV went out for week and the place got overrun with zombies.

Did he ever do that with EVOO, Extra Virgin Olive Oil?