The Post's John Maynard (or an editor) had a neat story idea -- watch five cooking shows and see what a neophyte can learn about cooking.
One problem: He picked lousy shows.
Emeril's show is fine for his purposes, even if it's not one of my favorites. But Take Home Chef? Throwdown with Bobby Flay, which is apparently some sort of Iron Chef knockoff?
Here's what Maynard should have watched, courtesy of a regular Food Network viewer:
- We'll leave Emeril, just for the different style.
- Good Eats. Emeril's polar opposite -- an engaging nerdy guy using all sorts of contrived situations and props to teach us the science of cooking. You won't always get a good recipe, but you'll always learn something.
- 30 Minute Meals. The conventional wisdom on Rachael Ray seems to be that people love her or can't stand her. I dare to think my opinion is true for most of us -- we love her cooking shows and are a little ambivalent on her awkwardly staged "travel, meet and greet" shows.
- License to Grill. An obscure one from Discovery Home channel, featuring a guy who has a lot of expensive grills in his backyard and always has pretty friends coming over.
- Everyday Italian. You can't get any friendlier than Giada, and her recipes look useful.
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Until the 2003 debut of MythBusters, Good Eats was my favorite show on TV.
No one watches Giada for the cooking. Don't lie.
If you haven't seen it, check out Ace of Cakes. The commercials are silly, but the show is very entertaining, especially if you have any kind of art background. They did an Aubrey Beardsley wedding cake and my gf ran off to her bookshelf to show me the source material.
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