Someone finally got it right……..

Yeah, yeah….it’s been a while since my last post. Oh well..although I do have some restaurant reviews to post, there has been nothing interesting happening in the food world lately, until yesterday.

There is an interesting article on Yahoo! entitled, “Fight, Fight! Paula Deen Tells Anthony Bourdain To ‘Get a Life’”. And I give credit to Yahoo! for the quotes from the article included in this blog.

Finally..someone besides me has had the balls to speak out about these talentless assholes on the FoodNetwork!!!!

Before I start to rip apart Paula Deen and the rest of the circus monkeys on the FoodNetwork, let’s talk about who Anthony Bourdain is. Chef, author of several books and host of “No Reservations” on the TravelChannel, Mr. Bourdain, formerly executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York City, is characterized as the “anti-celebrity chef”. Born and raised in the NYC Tri-State area, he can be crass and offensive. He never wore a starched, white jacket or fancy hat. Mr. Bourdain is a great chef, a great writer, and has an infectious passion for food of every kind. This passion is what has created millions of gourmet fans around the world and he has turned more people onto good food than any five-star, fancy-hat chef out there, or any of the FoodNetwork circus monkeys.

I became aware of Mr. Bourdain when my dear friends Dave & Tippy, gave me his book, “Kitchen Confidential”. Halfway into the book, I was amazed at what incredible insight and talent this man possesses. His spirit, his talent, his passion for food, and his non-obnoxious approach, make him a food industry hero in my book. You all know that I revere Julia Child as the all time, most talented chef that has ever lived, who changed the way we eat, but Mr. Bourdain runs a close second!! And if you have never watched his show, please do so. And if you have never read any of his books, buy them and read them!!

Although you may not like him because he acts like a civilized human being, rather than a FoodNetwork circus monkey, and he speaks the truth about the food industry, rather than sugarcoats what he says as to not offend anyone. Ya know what…you don’t like the truth, then you’re a fool!!

While reading the above-mentioned article on Yahoo! yesterday, Mr. Bourdain made several remarks that are the culmination of what is wrong with 99% of the moron celebrity chefs on TV today. “She (Paula Deen) is the worst, most dangerous person to America. She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations, and she’s proud of the fact that her food is f—ing bad for you. I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it is OK to eat food that is killing us. Plus, her food sucks.”

AMEN BROTHER!!

The woman is a talentless, loud-mouthed moron, that cooks shit that I wouldn’t serve to my dog (if I had one). For the life of me, I can’t figure out what her appeal is…what, just because she says “Hey y’all” with that whiny loud voice of hers? Because she uses a pound of butter in everything she cooks? In my opinion, it’s a WASTE of good butter. And don’t even get me started on those two talentless, loser sons of hers that appear on her shows from time to time. ISH! ISH! ISH! The only reason she is popular, is for the same reason all of the other “celebrity chefs” are popular: Most of the American public has the IQ of a fucking handball and enjoys stupid, obnoxious, rude, talentless tripe.

There is no other way to describe what television has degraded into these days. Look around…almost everything on mainstream TV is a reality show. Reality shows that show that BAD behavior is ACCEPTABLE behavior. Every single one of the reality chef shows on TV today is the culmination of the WORST and most OFFENSIVE behavior by the talentless hosts and chef judges. HOW DARE these chefs treat the contestants the way they do! By force only, I watched Master Chef a few weeks ago, as my mother would not change the channel, and one of the chef judges, Joe Bastianich, tasted a contestant’s food, and without saying a word, took the entire dish and threw it in the garbage, then stating that it was disgusting.

WTF?!?! WTF?!? How can anyone treat another human being that way?? How does this help an aspiring chef? And who the fuck does Joe Bastianich think he is?!?! There are more than enough chefs and wine experts in the world that know as much or more as this loser does and I’ll bet you any money that they don’t mentor aspiring chefs the way he does.

And don’t even get me started about Gordon Ramsey..as far as I’m concerned, the man is a total fucking buffoon. He is a gutless, talentless scumbag of the worst sort that is only famous because the handball-level IQed American public enjoys the abuse that he heaps on anyone he comes into contact with. It’s a sad note about our society when people enjoy this kind of tripe and verbally abusing other people!!!!!

Back to the subject at hand….In the same article, “Bourdain also criticized Food Network personalities Rachael Ray (“Does she even cook anymore?), Sandra Lee (“I hate her works on this planet”) and Guy Fieri (“I look at Guy and I just think, ‘Jesus, I’m glad that’s not me.’”) “

AMEN AGAIN BROTHER! And once again I question why American public enjoys the garbage that spews from these people. None of them have an ounce of talent. They’re obnoxious; they’re stupid and couldn’t cook a decent meal if their lives depended on it.

Paula Deen responds to Mr. Bourdain’s remarks by stating, “Anthony Bourdain needs to get a life. You don’t have to like my food, or Rachael’s, Sandra’s and Guy’s. But it’s another thing to attack our character…” “Get a Life”??? Excuse me Paula Deen…he has one! And is infinitely more successful and talented that you and your fellow circus monkeys will EVER be!

But I don’t think that the entire issue is about the food. I think Paula Deen misses the point….Paula, Rachel, Sandra and Guy (and all the others) are MORONS! They’re show people..not chefs. I’ve already stated what I think of Paula’s cooking…Rachel Ray is a loud mouth who cooks shit that you can find in a box, Sandra is even worse because she cooks FROM the box and we all know how I feel about Guy Fieri…he thinks that everything should be cooked the way it is cooked in California…California, where everything tastes like shit, they use the blandest ingredients and they put mustard on Tuna and tomatoes on hot dogs.

What really puzzles me about the whole situation is why Paula Deen is shocked by Mr. Bourdain’s comments. Everything he said is true. Everything I have said here about these moronic celebrity chefs is true. Of course, one has to look at the situation objectively and be willing to accept the truth, something that most people can’t handle.

When you bottom line the situation, ask yourself something: Would you rather eat something from a seasoned chef like Mr. Bourdain, who was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and was executive chef at one of NYC’s most prestigious restaurants or would you rather eat something from a talentless, loud-mouthed, obnoxious asshole? Filet Mignon or Turkey on a stale “french roll” with avocado and mustard?

Would you rather have someone constructively criticize your cooking to help you cook better, or would you rather have someone curse at you, berate you and throw your food in the trashcan?

The choice is yours!

Until next time…..Bon Appetit!

PS To be fair, here is the link to the original Yahoo! article Paula and Anthony Bourdain  And of course, the mainstream media agrees with the talentless, moronic Paula Deen. So much for the truth!

 

Coffee – Part 2

Let’s talk a little more about coffee, shall we?

In part 1 of this blog, I extensively ranted about the disgusting sludge called coffee at Starbucks. Do any of you buy Starbucks coffee and make it at home? Whenever I buy any quality brand coffee, I tend to buy the whole beans and grind them at home..it gives me, and I am sure you as well, the delusion that the coffee is fresher and will taste better. I’m not sure if that is true, but there is a trend that I have noticed when purchasing coffee beans for home consumption.

Starbucks’, along with Peats’ and many other brands, coffee beans tend to look oily and shiny. Especially with beans that are dark or extra roasted..why is that? And when you brew the coffee, there seems to be an oil slick ON the top of the coffee. Do you know why that is? Because the beans are OVER ROASTED!!

Now let’s look at this logically….would you over cook a roast? When making toast, do you toast the bread to the point that it is almost black? Of course you wouldn’t, so why would over roast and practically burn the coffee beans? I’ll tell you why…..Because it is easier to burn the beans and have exactly the same charred flavor than to bother with different tastes in different stores. Starbucks and Peats (among many other coffee chains) seem more concerned with quantity, rather than quality. I went to a Starbucks in Osaka, Japan in 2002 and the coffee tasted EXACTLY like the coffee at a Starbucks in New York. Now..while some of you may like “consistency”, if I am in another country, I don’t want to taste things exactly the same as they are in the USA. It’s a simply STUPID idea. I want to taste the DIFFERENCES!!

Enough about Starbucks…I could on and on because I simply despise what they have done to the coffee industry and how they have ruined so many peoples’ pallets. Funny that….many Americans prefer the taste of burned, over roasted coffee….hmmmm…what does that tell you about their pallets? Hmmmm……? And please DON’T make any remarks about the fact that it is “Dark Roasted” coffee..IT IS NOT! NOT! NOT! I drink dark roasted coffee all the time and it tastes nothing like Starbucks. IT IS BURNED!!

I was fortunate to have a date last week….yes, it does happen once in a while, and we decided to take a stroll in the Rockridge section of Oakland, Ca. While strolling, we happened upon a small coffee shop, The Bica Coffeehouse, and my date suggested that we stop in for a coffee, giving us the opportunity to sit, sip and people watch. It is a small coffee house, several people sitting in the windows, working on their laptops and sipping their coffees. As stated previously, I am not big on coffee that isn’t coffee..no flavors, no mocha, bla bla bla. But I do love a cup of Cappuccino. I mean, really..I’m Italian..all Italians are supposed drink espresso and Cappuccino!!

So, I ordered a Cappuccino…for $3.50..ISH! With, only one person working behind the counter, it seemed like it took forever for him to finish making the coffees. While I was waiting, I had time to chat with my date a bit more and took a phone call. Finally..the coffee was done. We sat at a table outside the shop, proceeded to people watch and sip our coffee. First sip…a lot of foam and very little coffee. Second sip, coffee…and much to my surprise, the coffee was delicious. I was expecting the typical, hippie over-roasted, oil-slick laded burned beyond belief coffee that is so popular among uneducated pallets these day. But much to my surprise, the flavor of this Cappuccino was amazing! Smooth, yet bold with no burned coffee bean taste, the proportion of milk to espresso was perfect and served at just the right temperature that you didn’t burn the inside of your mouth when sipping. Truly worth the $3.50. I recommend a visit to this lovely little coffee house. You can find them at www.bicacoffeehouse.com It’s not much of a site, but you can get their address there. And also, don’t forget to visit my friend Joe at The Celtic Coffee Company in San Francisco for a really lovely cup of coffee. www.celticcoffeecompany.com

Now..I know I’ll get a lot of comments about my favorite place to buy coffee, in California. But since most people here have C.U.P.S. (California Uneducated Palate Syndrome) and buy their morning coffee at those places mentioned above that I shan’t mention again, I have been forced to find a decent cup of morning coffee. I happened to have a craving one morning for an Egg McMuffin..yes, on occasion, I do crave a greasy, calorie-filled breakfast sandwich. So while ordering, I thought that I would give McDonald’s coffee a try. Much to my surprise, it was delicious! Smooth, not burned, tasty and the server made my coffee exactly the way I like it. I was impressed! McDonald’s has also jumped on the coffee band wagon, making all sorts of crazy coffee combinations, to satisfy the ridiculous trend of coffee drinks that so many people crave these days. (And that are also making people FATTER than they already are). So they are buying better quality coffee than they used to. I will give McDonald’s kudos on their coffee for two reasons..it tastes like coffee AND it is NOT consistent, depending on where you are in the country. McDonald’s uses coffee from more local sources than just over roasting their beans to taste the same in each location, giving you the opportunity to enjoy the subtle taste differences. But no matter which McDonald’s I visit, the coffee is always delicious. And I am happy to say, that I have converted some doubting Thomases.  Even Dunkin Donuts, the best coffee in the world, uses beans from different coffee suppliers, depending on location. Quality is always better than quantity, in my book.

So..what have we learned? Over roasted burned coffee beans, when brewed, makes a brown liquid that should be poured into your crankshaft. Properly roasted coffee beans, when brewed, make coffee the way it should be made! If you like those places that burn their coffee..well, that’s your loss, but I dare anyone to justify why it is ok to burn the coffee beans! If you really do, come on over to my place, and I’ll burn a meal for you.

Until next time…buon appetito!

Hot Dogs…………here we go………………….!!!

OK…time to talk about hot dogs, or frankfurters, as you may call them. Hot dogs are truly a regional food, depending on where you are in the USA, a basic hot dog is served differently. And of course, being from NY and overly opinionated about everything, I will present you herewith, a discussion on proper hot dog etiquette.

Are we ready? Let’s begin, shall we………

There are more than an ample variety of hot dogs on the market these days. There are chicken dogs – gross! Turkey dogs – I didn’t know turkeys like hot dogs! Veggie and tofu dogs – Do I even need to say anything about those…FEH! These hot dogs taste like ass!

The only good hot dog, is a beef hot dog!! Several superior hot dog manufacturers only make beef hot dogs and are worth a mention: Nathans, Sabrett(East Coast), Boar’s Head, Kaspers (West Coast), Caspers (West Coast), Best’s (East Coast) and Hebrew National. There are other beef hot dog makers, but the aforementioned hot dogs are the best that money can buy. Now don’t get your knickers in a twist, I will explain.

A good all beef hot dog should be firm and not mushy as other types of hot dogs are. When you bite into a beef hot dog, the natural casing should *snap*, releasing the juicy goodness. The taste of the hot dog should always have a background hint of garlic and NO overly smokey flavor! Each of the mentioned brands of hot dog stand up to these standards. A good hot dog has a slightly tangy flavor, which compliments the mustard you will put on your hot dog………YES, I do enjoy mustard on a hot dog….spicy brown or dijon…not that nasty yellow crap!

A little description, for your reading pleasure of my experience with hot dogs:

New York Dog- Hot dog with mustard and/or sauerkraut, and maybe some red onions from the dirty water hot dog carts in NYC. Nothing else..that’s it! And for those of you that are not from the NY tri-sate area, that is exactly what we call them..”Dirty Water Hot Dog Carts”. You can find them on almost every street corner of NYC and they are THE BEST hot dogs in the world!!!

Chicago Dog – Hot dogs, served on a seeded bun (vomit), with yellow mustard, white onions, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, neon-green relish, celery salt and pickled peppers. Uh…WTF is that?!?!?!? If I want salad, I’ll order a side dish of salad! How in the world can anyone eat something like that???!!!??? I mean, really…a dill pickle spear…on a hot dog? Tomatoes??? I feel the nausea coming on now.

West Coast Dog- Anything goes…tomato slices, mayonnaise, ketchup, avacado..you name it, they’ll put anything disgusting on a hot dog here. GROSS!!!!! Mayo…on a hot dog?!!?? Avacado?!?!?!?! WTF?!?!?! WTF?!?!!??!

There is a constant debate in my house about whether ketchup belongs on a hot dog. I think it is sacrilege, but Gracie and her BF seem to enjoy it. Hmmm…I admit, when I was a kid, I ate ketchup on hot dogs..and most kids do, mainly because their taste buds have not developed enough to enjoy the special taste of mustard. However…once you pass puberty, ketchup on a hot dog should be forbidden!!! The sweet taste of ketchup does not blend well with the tanginess of a hot dog…plain and simple! I can’t even imagine what it would taste like…simple vile!

And what about the bun? Seeded??? I don’t think so! Steamed or boiled hot dogs, deserve a steamed bun. Grilled hot dogs deserve a grilled and toasty bun. The texture of how the bun is prepared actually compliments how the hot dog is cooked…..think about that…..imagine it…and it’ll make sense to you too!

Along with pizza, hot dogs are my favorite food in the world (no smart ass comments please). There are so many ways to dress a hot dog – bacon wrapped, chili, chili-n-cheese, and the list goes on and on. Our discussion today was about basic hot dogs and the do and don’t of eating a hot dog. I am hopeful that you learned some useful information and that you will also eat your hot dogs properly!!

Until next time….Kali Orexi!

More silliness……

I don’t want to beat a dead horse too much, but it’s fun!! And I have found that I love bashing the FoodNetwork, the Cooking Channel and everything that is wrong in the food industry. Not because I am mean or anything like that, but someone needs to speak up! Who better, than l’il ol’ me!

So..I was watching American version of “Iron Chef” the other night and came close to vomiting again. I’m really getting tired of almost vomiting so often. One could say that I should stop watching these channels and I could avoid the whole vomit thing. But why should I? There is so much absurdity on these channels that I could write a book. Ooh…idea!

Back to the Iron Chef….Bobby Flay was the Iron Chef in competition, and he was searing a piece of swordfish. And although I love swordfish, I don’t eat it because it is full of parasites. Sometimes the parasites are so large in size, that they have to be pulled out of the flesh with a pair of pliers and can be 2-3 feet long. Yeah…pretty gross, eh. Hence, no more swordfish for me. Anyway….This is what I heard Alton Brown (the host or narrator) say about the piece of swordfish that was being cooked, “Those grill marks really look great”.

Until that remark, I had a lot of respect for Mr. Brown. I really enjoyed his show, “Good Eats” and have learned quite a bit from it. But…WTF?!?!? Grill marks?! WTF?!?!? Uh..do grill marks make the food taste good? If Bobby Flay were grilling a dog turd, would Alton Brown think the grill marks look good? If I were to sear my arm on my grill in my backyard, would the grill marks still look good? Why do people criss-cross grill marks when they grill something? Does it make it taste better? Point is, if the food tastes terrible, what difference do the grill marks make or how it looks!!!!!???!!!! Concentrate on the taste and flavoring…everything else will take care of itself!!

Next…ooh…my skin is crawling already…..

What is Artisan? Artisinal? This word is popping up everywhere! The new trend on the food industry is “Artisinal”! Wow…new food! New types of breads! Cheeses! Cakes! Stews! Etc.! Yaaay!

Oh damn….it’s just another stupid word to describe stuff….stumped again! So WTF does it mean????

Artisan: a person skilled in an applied art; a craftsperson.

Ah..that must mean that someone who is skilled in making items or a “specialist”, is making them. Cool…..wait…..don’t people have to already know what they are doing in order to do it? An example: If a new employee starts to work in the bakery of the local supermarket, he/she usually lacks the skills of a baker. This person is trained and eventually learns the craft. WHEN does this person become an “Artisan”? Why doesn’t the supermarket recognize this and change the name of the bread that he/she bakes to “Pre-Artisan” until he/she becomes an “Artisan”? Most chefs in restaurants are skilled in their craft, so does that make them all “Artisans”? If that is the case, all the dishes on the menu should be “Artisinal”, shouldn’t they? What about the short order cook at your local diner? This person has usually been slinging hash for years, are his/her grilled cheese sandwiches “Artisinal”? Am I getting really ridiculous here?

YES I AM! Ya know why??? Because this whole “Artisinal” thing if just as f#$king ridiculous!! I’ve been a friggin CFO for the past 21 years, am I an Artisinal CFO? My mechanic is very skilled at changing tires…does that make my new tires “artisinal”? Gimme a friggin break!

I’ve lived in California for 7 years…since then, I have shopped at a supermarket chain named “Safeway”. Most Safeway locations have an in-house bakery. Although I am not fond of supermarket bakeries or Safeway for that matter, Safeway bakeries make a pretty decent fresh baguette and french bread. When I started buying these items 7 years ago, they were called just that..”Baguettes” and “French Bread” and “Sour Dough Baguette”. In the past 7 years, nothing has changed with these breads, and their quality has remained consistent….so why did they recently change the wrapper to include the word “Artisinal”?? NOTHING HAS CHANGED!! When and why did these ordinary loaves of bread go from being homemade to “Artisinal”??????  Were they always “Artisinal”???? What if the load of bread that I buy was baked by someone who has only been training in the bakery for a month? Is that particular loaf of bread still “artisinal”?????

IT’S ALL SHOW! NO SUBSTANCE..JUST SHOW! Remember the old days when “Artisinal” things were just called “homemade”? BECAUSE THAT IS ALL THAT IT IS!! More bullshit names for the same old stuff!

Why? Why? Why?

Oh..I’ll tell ya why….as I stated in a previous post, it’s because the chefs of today, and people in the food industry, don’t have the bloody skills to think or create on their own. They need to depend on something irrelevant to add substance; they need a crutch for their lack of skills, hence the fancy new names!

I started working as an assistant chef when I was 13 years old. If anyone from my hometown remembers it, I worked in a French restaurant named Herbal Gardens. This is where I was trained in classical French Cooking and by the time I was 17, I was running the Sunday Brunch kitchen on my own. After high school, I continued in the industry for several additional years but eventually moved into a different line of work because, frankly, the money was better. But I have always cooked. I cooked throughout my entire 19 years of marriage, and continue to this day. Over the years, I have developed a respect for the art…Yes, cooking IS an art..and I don’t mean it’s an art because some whacko chef creates a fancy looking dish with only 3 bites of food for $39.95…It is an art because there are chefs out there who can take a leather boot and create a meal fit for royalty from it….THAT is art!!

I don’t take cooking for granted although most people don’t give it a second thought. It is my art….some people dabble in oils, or sculpture, my artistic skill is in cooking. While I trained, I learned that a sauce, is a sauce. I learned the difference between bechamel sauce and a veloute sauce….but they were still both sauces! I learned how to puree fruits and veggies. I learned how to make a coulis. I learned what the REAL difference between the two are. I learned how to cook and how apply my skills to food…not how to rename something.

When I look at a chicken breast in the butcher case, I think of the hundreds of ways I can prepare it…I don’t think of another name I can give it. It is a chicken breast..nothing more, nothing less. I understand terms like “farm-raised”, “free range” and “organic” are important, especially in this day and age when the government is allowing Monsanto to genetically engineer fruits and veggies and they are allowing farmers to pump sick animals full of antibiotics to compensate for the filthy conditions in which the animals are raised. Those terms are important to people who care about where their food comes from.

The new breed of chefs need to get their heads our of their collective asses and go back to chef school and learn how to cook, or get out of the industry completely. They should stop worrying about their “advertising to cover up my ineptness in the kitchen skills” and start worrying about cooking!!!

Once again, I beg the question, “Is all this really necessary?” And we all know what the answer is!!!!

Until next time….Bon Appetit!

Names and Combinations

It’s Wednesday! And what does that mean?? It’s Prince Spaghetti Day!!

But it’s also the day for my weekly rant. This week:  Names and Combinations

What does that mean, you ask? Why, I would be happy to explain…..

Have you noticed? Out of nowhere, food has new names! There’s been a quiet revolution in the food industry, mostly perpetuated with the glitz and glam so prevalent on the FoodNetwork and a generation of new chefs that believe changing the name of something and/or giving you a bite-sized portion at fine dining prices, will make it taste better……….Hmmm…….I wonder if they are compensating for something……………………………..

OK…so…..If you put some tomatoes (ripe ones if you can find them) in a blender, turn it on and whiz it around until it becomes a liquid, what would you call the end product? Yes…You are absolutely correct, we call it “puree”.  At least, that’s what we called it in the old days. But these days, when everything is based on hype, we call it “coulis”. (pronounced “koo – lee”) We went from simplicity to hyped up absurdity with just one word. What the hell is up with that???

Ooh..here’s another good one….Take some sliced strawberries, toss them with some sugar and maybe a little balsamic vinegar and let it sit in the bowl for a while, so that the strawberries absorb some of the sugary goodness and the flavor of the vinegar. As a matter of fact, you can perform that action with anything…take  piece of chicken and leave it in a bowl with liquid and flavoring, the same with veggies, beef, lamb, etc. And do you know what that’s called? Right again! Marinating!! Oh, but I forgot to hype it up..it’s now called “Macerating”.  Another new word to mean something that we already have a word for! Funny that! (And before anyone goes and looks these “new” words up in the dictionary, I already have..and yes, people in the cooking industry are NOT using them 100% properly, but this isn’t an English lesson, and I’m not the one using them, so it doesn’t matter)

Remember in the old days when we went to a car lot and bought a “Used Car”? You can’t do that anymore, however you can buy a “Pre-Owned” car!

Isn’t….

That….

Wonderful?!?

“Honey, I’m going to the car lot. I’m not going to buy some piece of crap used car, I’m going to buy a fine driving machine..a pre-owned car!” Well, last time I looked gurls and boys…the pre-owned car was used by someone else before me, so that makes it a USED f%$king car!! Let’s just call a spade, a spade, shall we?!!

But to be fair, before I started letting it really piss me off, I thought it through. And after some consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that changing a name of a food or an action performed on/to food, doesn’t change it’s taste! Nor does it change it’s structure or it’s composition! In reality, it changes nothing!! In keeping with the modern wave of silliness in the cooking/restaurant industry, the only thing it does is to add unnecessary hype. It’s almost like “redirection”; when you switch a child’s focus from something he/she can’t have or do to a second thing that makes he/she forget about the first thing. WTF?!?!?!?!?!?

Now my knickers are in a twist…so let’s move on before I have a conniption….

I love soft serve ice cream or frozen custard, as it is sometimes called.  A soft serve vanilla ice cream hits the spot on a hot summer day. YUM! You can get it with sprinkles, or chocolate covering, cherry covering, caramel sauce drizzled on it………But today I would like my ice cream cone covered with wasabi powder. Yes, you read it correctly….a soft serve vanilla ice cream cone with wasabi powder….doesn’t that sound appetizing?!?!?(said sarcastically) And before any of you say something like “it might be good”..reconsider. There are simply things that DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER. Wasabi and vanilla ice cream are two things that DON’T belong together.

Tuna & Mustard anyone? Pizza with Fish eggs? Tomato Sauce with Cinnamon? Some foods DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER!!!!!

It’s amazing that people actually eat stuff like that. There is an ice cream truck in NYC, that sells very whacked-out versions of ice cream cones with ridiculous toppings. If I haven’t made your mouth macerate with that one, let’s try this….how about going to a fine restaurant…look at the menu….you’re in the mood for something meaty…ah…beef! There’s a lovely dish on the menu:

“Beef Kabobs – Seared beef tips on a bed of balsamic vinegar-infused fresh macerated baby spinach with meyer lemon glaze”

“Tips”? -  Tips of what?

“Infused”?? -  Did the chef use an osmosis machine of some nature?

“Macerated”?  – NEXT…

“Baby Spinach”? – I ain’t eatin’ no babies Miss Scarlett!

“Meyer Lemon”? – WTF??? Do non-chef people even know what a Meyer lemon is?? (I don’t need to know if you do..the majority of people don’t!!)

Translation into non-hype, normal English: “Beef Kabobs – Seared beef served on a bed of balsamic flavored spinach with lemon glaze”. OK…this isn’t a real dish…at least I hope it’s not because it sounds disgusting (lemon and beef do not mix well), but the point is, why all the hype and why combine flavors that way? Some foods do NOT belong together!!

And what about these restaurants that charge you $39.95 for a main course and when it arrives at your table there’s three bites of food on the plate? Where’s the food? That would average out to $13.32 per bite…..Oh hell no!! Honey, for $39.95 you had better make sure that my belly is full…..or at least give me a happy ending!!!! Jeez!!!

The point I am trying to make, if you haven’t already figured it out, is that all of this is unnecessary. Why do we need to know that the lemons in the sauce are Meyer lemons…it doesn’t matter! I don’t need to change the name of what I am doing to prove that I am doing something. I don’t need to change the name of something to make it taste better…because it won’t taste better!! What ever happened to good basic food? If I order a steak, I don’t want it on a puree (or coulis) of anything, I don’t want it topped with anything…I want a friggin’ steak! I want to taste the steak, not all of these frivolous trimmings that disguise the taste of the steak!!

Yes, yes, yes…I understand that we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths..but really…let’s get real about it..there’s only so much fluff one’s eyes can take!!

Earlier, I stated that I wondered if chefs are compensating for something, while disguising food with all this hype….have you thought about it? I have….could it be that these new chefs’ skills are not as honed as they should be? That they have not been trained enough? That they need to create “fluff and hype” to cover for their lack of skills??????????? Hmmmmmmm…………………………………….?

Well..for whatever reason that the food industry has taken on this “theatrical” approach, most foodies can agree on one thing….Food Only! No Fluff! Thank you…please drive thru!

Until next time…..Bon Appetit!!

The FoodNetwork and Catch Phrases

Time for a rant!! Yaaa! And if you like the FoodNetwork or the Cooking Channel, you may not want to read this…

I  despise the FoodNetwork with a passion! Almost every time I turn it on, something offends me and my love for food and cooking. It doesn’t mean I don’t watch it. As a matter of fact, the more I hate it, the more I watch it! (don’t even try to figure that out..you have your psychoses, I have mine!) I continue to look for a program with some redeeming value, but the programming on the FoodNetwork continues to de-evolve into some of the worst tripe on TV. The programming, especially during prime-time, misguides the audience into thinking that what they are watching is akin to cooking or learning how to cook, while it is just a bunch of ridiculous reality shows with trashy people acting badly.

I was really hopeful when my cable company started broadcasting the new “Cooking Channel”. It is touted as a channel for cooks, by cooks. Guess what? NOT! It’s another channel full of hype and silliness.

Now that I’ve gotten some of you angry..allow me to explain what I mean….

Before the FoodNetwork made it’s debut, so many years ago, if you wanted to watch cooking shows, you had to tune to a public television station. These were shows that taught you how to cook, plain and simple. The hosts of the show were actually chefs. Technique was shown and explained. The hosts of the shows weren’t all hyped up, jumping all over the studio, yelling at the camera, acting like assholes, dressed like freaks and using rapper hand gestures to explain everything they say. They were simply chefs teaching their audience how to cook the cuisine in which they specialized. Believe it or not, public television still broadcasts real cooking shows, some of which have been on for over 15 years…ya know why? Because they have redeeming value!

When the cable company in Rockland County, NY (where I grew up) finally got the FoodNetwork (all of my Rockland friends will tell you that the cable company has always been about 2 years behind in getting new channels), they were still showing instructional cooking shows. But then came Emeril….Mr. “BAM” himself (my skin is crawling now). Do YOU yell “BAM” every time you put a little hot pepper in one of your dishes? I don’t think so…and what would your loved ones think? Hmmm? And while I like what Emeril cooks, I simply cannot stomach all the BS that goes along with it. But wait…there’s more…..THEN, they added an audience to the show. I almost vomited the day he said that he was going to add some garlic to a dish he was cooking…AND THE AUDIENCE CLAPPED. WTF?!?!? I add garlic to almost everything I cook…I never hear anyone clapping for it….do you, when you add garlic to something? WTF?!?!? Is adding garlic really a feat so monumental that it requires clapping? WTF?!?!? Juggling flaming knives while balancing a ball on your nose and wiping your ass at the same time….now THAT is a feat that requires clapping!!

But I digress…breathing, breathing…ah…..

Then came Rachel Ray..with that whiny, nasaly, annoying voice…..remember the teachers on the “Peanuts” cartoons? Remember what they sounded like, “Waaa, waaa, waaaaa, wa, waaaaaa”? After two minutes of Rachel Ray’s voice droning on about “EVOO” and “YUM-O”, I want to scratch my f#$king eyes out!!!

Breathing….breathing…..ah…..

Then, Guy Fieri……vomiting……vomiting again….I love what that show(DD&D) has to offer as I have dined at more than several of the places that he has featured on DD&D and have had some really terrific dining experiences…but the show needs a new host!!! And can he PLEASE keeps his roots and hair the same color?!?!?!?  Between the peroxide wash, the dark roots, yelling at the camera like he’s selling Oxy-Clean, the rapper hand gestures every time he talks, the bad goatee, the shorts and the flip flops, the “winner winner chicken dinner”, and the incessant talking over the chef with his pedantic comments, (gritting my teeth now) I want to reach in the TV and smack him until he shuts the hell up! An example: The chef that Guy is interviewing is making a dish and adds oregano to the dish. Fieri always has to open his yap and add something like “Oh, that’s Mexican oregano”….WHO THE HELL CARES?!!?!?!? SHUT UP! LET THE CHEF COOK!! I want to learn how to cook the dish, and I could care less where the f$%@ing oregano comes from. Not everyone can get “Mexican” oregano where they live, so why the hell is it even relevant?!?! How about the customers that he interviews in the restaurants he visits….everything is “Cooked to perfection”, “The best I’ve ever eaten”….these people must live in a freakin’ bubble…and more than likely, these people have never tasted the dish anywhere else, so how the hell can they make these statements!?!?!?

Digressing……Breathing….breathing….breathing…….

Now..catch phrases…GRRRRR……

Here are some of the catch phrases you will NEVER see on my blog:

“YUM-O”, “winner, winner chicken dinner”, “Crunchy with a capital ‘K’”, “That’s Money”, “EVOO”, “Cooked to perfection”, “The best I’ve ever eaten”, “Nobody makes it better”, “BAM!”.

If I ever use one of those phrases, you have my permission to flog me with a cat-o-nine-tails. (and I promise I won’t like it…too much..LOL)

But I digress…again….breathing…breathing….

The point I am trying to make is that all the glitz, the show-off, the silliness and the useless information are just unnecessary and insulting to any real foodie. Mind you, I am fully aware that every single show cannot be instructional..there has to be food commentary, shows about good restaurants, etc., but for crying out loud, could they PLEASE put some hosts on these shows that aren’t total buffoons!! If you want to learn how to cook and/or get inspired by cooking shows…for the most part, the FoodNetwork is not the place to go. Public TV is still the best place to watch a cooking show and actually learn cooking and technique. Why is all that glitzy stupid inane silliness necessary to present a show about food? I guess it’s like anything else these days, it’s become all about the $$ rather than something of real value. “Unwrapped” or “Good Eats” are great examples of good shows, that teach, are informative and don’t include all of the useless, silly BS.

Oh yeah…who eats those meals where it is comes on a HUGE plate and there’s only two bites of food or these wacky food combos like breast of pigeon with cinder block puree on a bed of poison ivy leaves………..? (Remember this..we’ll talk about it soon)

Until next time..Kali Orexi!

Delicious and Decadent Food…In California

There is none!

Until next time….bon appetit!