from the competitions to travelogues to cooking at home. I love cooking shows. what are your faves and wht?
My faves:
Good Eats
Man v. Food
*Phantom Gourmet *(New England restaraunt review show)
** Food Network**
Good Eats
Secrets of a Restaurant Chef
Diners, Drive-ins and Dives
Guy’s Big Bite
Dinner: Impossible
The Best Thing I Ever Ate
Cooking Channel
Anything with Nigella 
Bitchen’ Kitchen
Jamie At Home
Iron Chef(Japanese)
The Secret Life of…
- Bourdain (Oy, I know… )
- Bizarre Foods (I minerally love his fashion sense and sense of pride to be the expert in trying out all things)
- The Scandinavian cooking show(s) on PBS (3 different personals… something very refreshing and dill-y about the Scandinavian scenery and the food)
- Anything with Julia Child (she’s like a comfort food… funny goofy grandma I never had who also teaches you the basics of french cuisine)
- Dinner Impossible (surprisingly entertaining especially in the wee hours when there aren’t much on)
Good Eats - Love it for the way Alton breaks down the processes that make cooking work.
Iron Chef - I always loved the original Japanese version, but I have enjoyed the American version ever since Alton started hosting. I don’t know how many people remember, but the first iteration of Iron Chef America was a gaudy circus hosted by William Shatner.
Feasting on Asphalt - Did I mention I am an Alton Brown fan?
Master Chef - I missed the first season, but I like seeing home chefs put to the test. They seriously need to drop some of the over wrought dramatic pauses and commercial cuts, though. I can’t watch this one if I can’t zip through some of the fluff, but it’s a good overall concept.
Chopped - I like this show because it contains similar elements to Iron Chef. Excellent chefs cooking under pressure. Hate the host, though.
Anthony Bourdain - He’s an asshole, but I feel he’s a lovable asshole.
Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives - Guy was kind of an acquired taste for me, but I love seeing the places he highlights.
OH! - Dinner Impossible and Restaurant Impossible are both awesome. Love me some Robert Irvine.
I watch a lot of food porn, but the only two shows I’ve been moved to evangelize for are both Gordon Ramsay vehicles.
The F Word is a really fantastic food magazine program, with emphasis on encouraging regular folk to be more ambitious with their cooking.
I also really liked *Cookalong Live*, a show which was a bit gimmicky but really worked. The idea was that Ramsay would prepare a meal in real time over the course of the show, on a set with a “duplex” kitchen, with a guest following along. Other people would also follow along via satellite or TCP internet videochat, and viewers were meant to follow along at home live as well. (Here’s a clip to give you an idea.)
The reason that I liked these shows above all others is that the others were firmly in the category of food porn - but these two shows stood out as very frequently featuring meals that very quickly found their way to my table, where they were met with great enthusiasm. (The salmon en croute from the above clip is something that’s found its way into my regular repertoire - it’s not a difficult or time-consuming meal to prepare, but it never fails to impress.)
I should probably check out some of Alton Brown’s stuff - his recipes are good.
2 Fat Ladies
Check Please!
I am currently watching MasterChef and I like Chopped although I don’t always agree with thier delight in some of the foods created (caramlised hotdogs? blech!) Of course I can’t be a reall foodie since there are aq number of foods I don’t like, hot dogs being one of them, beer is another.
I like Cake Boss because of the crazy (contrived) situations and Budy and his famiglia’s crazyness.
I just bought the first 2 seasons of Good Eats, I don’t always agree with Alton but I like his style and I have all of Julia Childs shows.
Anything Alton, Guy or Bobby does.
^ Pretty much this!
Yup, me too. I love Paula Deen too… Food Network is running a mini-marathon of Paula’s shows so I’m a happy camper. 
I don’t dare cook like she does or else I’d weigh 400 pounds, so I have to settle for just watching.
I find Guy irritating, but I’ve always liked Alton and Bobby seems like a genuinely nice guy who has fun with what he does.
America’s Test Kitchen
Chopped
Bizarre Foods
No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain
Good Eats
Nigella Lawson
Ultimate Recipe Showdown
Cooking For Real(w/Sunny Anderson)
Radio:
The Splendid Table
Wow, I need to find your version of Chopped, because the one I’ve seen has lots of mediocre or so-so chefs, and while Ted Allen is fine, every judge they have in singularly insufferable. And unlike Master Chef or Top Chef, both of which I enjoy, there’s very little to invest in emotionally in the personalities, so the food is what’s left and while the challenge ingredients can be fun, the final results are usually tediously redundant.
I also like Iron Chef (those are top-drawer competitors), Dinner: Impossible (though it looks like Robert has migrated to a different show, now), and The Best Thing I Ever Ate because there’s usually always a California representative, half the time driving distance of where I live, which automatically helps create a ToDo list for me.
*Lidia’s Italy
No Reservations
Jamie at Home
America’s Test Kitchen
*
Huh, I don’t think any of those shows are on The Food Network.
I think Lidia Bastianich is my favorite. She’s the one who shows me how to really cook Italian food and travels to all the regions of Italy to talk about the different specialties. The agnolotti I make according to her recipe I consider my biggest cooking success ever.
I don’t watch a lot of food porn (real estate porn is my thing), but I do love that show where they have a contest to make the coolest cake (I think it’s the Ultimate Cake-Off). The cakes they make just blow my mind.
ETA: Forgot to mention my husband’s favourite foodie show, anything with Nigella Lawson. She’s his tv girlfriend.
Similarly, I neglected to mention Giada because I can never watch her show without my wife’s accusatory glare–and with good reason; I’d never make anything she prepares (though it does look good). I just think she’s a smokin’ hottie.
It took until post #13 to mention America’s Test Kitchen. 
My all-time favorites? Julia Child and Graham Kerr. The First Lady and First Gentleman of TV cooking.
I really enjoy Top Chef, I think I like it because it unlike the masterchef and its clones, it’s experienced skilled chefs competing.
The original Iron Chef, Never managed to enjoy the US version,
Man v Food os a guilty pleasure of mine.
My latest fave is a new show called Secret Meat Business, I think this is an Australian show though, so anyone outside Oz may not have seen it.
I like the show, particularly the product test segments, but I get the vibe that the host dude runs a bit of dictatorship in that America’s Test Kitchen’s ‘house on the prairie’; he’s the founder, editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated which is a parent company of American’s Test Kitchen. This seems, to me, especially apparent when they are doing blind taste tests that the guys who ran the test seem meek and sucking up the him.