Because they’re made out of onions.
The Food Network has been on a long slide straight to Hell since the very first season. The less it is about food, and the more it is about “personalities” the less I want to watch it.
Food Network, instead of nothing but infomercials all night long, could you possibly play some of your old, food-oriented shows like Taste?
If they could make more money from that than from the infomercials, I’m sure they would.
I was going to say pretty much the same thing here. Bobby Flay comes off as a smug prick on pretty much everything he does on the Food Network. Even on Throwdown, which was created for the express purpose of softening his image, he comes across as a kind of a douche.
But on this season of Food Network Star he actually comes off pretty well. He seems genuinely invested in his proteges, has a good sense of humor and offers advice with being overly smarmy.
Alton Brown, for as avuncular and gregarious as he appears on Good Eats, comes off as a sourpuss in pretty much everything else he does. His demeanor here reeks of “I’m just here to collect a paycheck, and so long as it clears, I don’t really give a damn what happens.”
You know what would have even better ratings? HARD CORE PORN!
Anyway what is the point of even having niche channels if the programs they were created for aren’t even profitable on them?!?
It would be like every restaurant deciding for monetary reasons to sell only burgers and fries, even if it is a Ethiopian/Japanese fusion place by name.
Watching this season of Food Network Star pretty much erased any affection I had for Alton Brown completely. I really like Good Eats still, but I don’t think Alton is the same person he was back then. Actually, I think his personality changed a lot when he lost all that weight. And for a while there, he was way skinny and seemed very bitter about it all. I remember the last couple of Good Eats he did after he lost the weight, he had already lost his charm.
So it’s not just me then. I’ve kinda hated the guy for a while, but sheesh, that performance last night made me want to beat him with a frozen turkey leg.
I went a-Googlin’ last night to see if anyone was talking about how obviously fake his tears were, but the only thing I found was something along the lines of, “Could you guys believe Alton was reduced to tears? OMG!”
Grrrr.
Its actually a sign of respect. The chef is in charge…its his kitchen. Truly great chefs that aren’t total fuckwits are teachers, really. That’s why line cooks, roundsmen, sous chefs, etc at prestigious restaurants put up with the crappy pay and (sometimes) abusive treatment. They get to learn from someone renowned, take what they learn and employ it in their own way as they climb the kitchen hierarchy. It also looks great on your resume to list “worked for Alain Ducasse”.
Uh huh, I get that. But working for/with/under a renowned expert in any other discipline is equally prestigious, isn’t it? And yet you don’t hear underlings screamin ‘Yes, Astrophysicist Who Made Several Paradigm-Shifting Observations!’ or ‘No, Highly Esteemed Virologist!’
To take something directly from a military setting and adapt it for…cooking? Can anybody with direct experience tell me when this practice (boot-camp style cookery, I mean) started? I have no way to know, but I suspect that TV had something to do with it.
I’m a little sarcastic today.
The Celebrity Chef… appears to be a dwindling fad.
Well, I do shout “yes, chef” whenever my boss tells me to do something. And I work in banking.
I always assumed the “yes, chef” was to ensure that you were heard and acknowledged in a busy, noisy kitchen.
When AB had his show about motorcycling across America a few years ago (I don’t remember the title and don’t care enough to look it up), there were a few captured moments on camera that were totally unscripted, and he came across as a prick or a martinet. That’s when I started changing my opinion about him and stopped watching Good Eats.
I’m fairly certain this is accurate.
teela brown, examples?
EDIT: I too assumed it was so the head chef guy knew that he was heard and acknowledged.
Yep - when I used to run a restaurant, we used “thank you” when orders were called out as a signal that they were acknowledged and done - sometimes we would also repeat back what was ordered to make sure there were no mistakes.
Yeah, i know = more noise to make sure things are heard in a noisy environment - but it also makes sure that everyone hears and that everyone is doing things - - helps more than hurts in the ‘team’ aspect of a busy kitchen.
Are you sure it wasn’t supposed to be fake, as a sort of parody of TV, or self-parody of Brown, and the joke just went over your head?
Yes.