I, like many here, are hopelessly addicted to the Food Network. It seems that pretty much whatever is on, I’m hooked.
I’ve got a few favorites, like anybody else. My boyfriend would permit an affair with Alton as long as he could marry into the De Laurentiis family.
So who is your favorite? Do you adore the gentle crooning of Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten? Do Bobby Flay’s rippled biceps and tough New York attitude send your TiVo to Throwdown?
Or are you melted by Giada’s bobbly head and disproportionately wide smile?
I really like Paula Deen and I guess she’s my favorite. She makes no apologies about using butter or mayo and she laughs about it every time. Even if she’s faking the accent or the downhominess (which I’ve heard people claim) I still can’t help but laugh along with her everytime she starts laughing. She also makes food I want to eat. I think I’ve tried or plan to try more of her recipes than anyone else’s.
I have a love/hate for Giada. I think her food is great and she makes it easy to make the recipes. However her head and teeth and mannerisms that emphasize them are distracting and she strikes me as a anal retentive perfectionist. Still I kind of like her.
Ina Garten is funny, too, and I like a lot of her food although I may not try half of it (like making my own gravlax). I love when she’s having a get together and she has to “try out” a few different cocktail recipes to see what’s going to work best. I think she tries more than a sip or two.
For the guys; Alton Brown, weird sense of humor and nerdy, what’s not to love? He tells you how food science works which I also like. Unfortunately, the times I usually get to watch Food Network means I don’t get to catch many of his shows. Then there’s Tyler Florence for eye candy … oh, and he cooks, too.
My favorite by far is Michael Chiarello. I have learned so much from his show and cooking techniques. Would love to sit down to a nice dinner and bottle of wine with him and his Napa Valley pals.
I also really like Ina Garten the Barefoot Contessa. She gives you the feeling that if you walked up and knocked on her door she would welcome you in and cook some muffins or a chocolate cake for you and be happy to do it. She also doesn’t apologize for putting butter in her recipes or making rich desserts. I like her style.
Alton is the only one I really adore, personality wise, although I suspect if I could slip her some Quaaludes, Rachael Ray would be fun to go drinking with. (Yes, I would mix downers and alcohol on Rach - it might bring her all the way down to normal.)
For recipes, Alton’s the tops for simple comfort food, followed by Paula “just a bit o’ butter” Deen. I’ve tried some of Giada’s, and the only flavor I get is salty (“Here, just wrap this prosciutto in pancetta and sprinkle it with a little sea salt!”) Rachael’s food is hit or miss. I love some of her stoups, and she does have some really great time-saving techniques like her two-pot method for long-simmered flavor.
I don’t grill, so Bobby Flay is out. And he’s so irritating and cocky, I never make it through one of his recipes anyway.
Mario Batalli is my favorite recipe guy for entertaining, but he doesn’t have a lot of personality, and his techniques are so simple I don’t need to see them demonstrated, so I just pilfer his recipes off the website.
I’ve only seen a couple of Ina Garten’s shows, and I was mostly unimpressed. And I couldn’t get Iron Butterfly out of my head after reading her name.
However, I see I missed Guy Fieri’s premier. I’ll have to DVR his show. I adored him on TNFNS.
For personality as well as practical usefulness of a show, I like Alton Brown. (what Doper wouldn’t like a nerdy guy who explains the molecular chemistry of mashed potatoes?)
For sheer entertainment value, nothing will ever top the original Japanese version of Iron Chef. The first time my wife and I ever saw that show, we couldn’t even make sense of what we were watching. It was so weird and campy but the chefs were so serious and legit. And some of those ingredients…:eek:
The American version is ok but it doesn’t really capture the strangeness of the original. I miss the guy on the floor who was always busting in with the “Fukui San…the Iron Chef Morimoto is working on a mixture of eel roe, cilantro, chili paste, ginger, shiitake mushrooms, frog testicles, saki and cream. He is now going to put the entire mixture into the ice cream machine.”
I know his schtick is a little goofy and repetitive but a lot of Emeril’s recipes are pretty good and not that hard to make. It’s better to get them online, though, because he’s pretty sloppy about throwing them together on his show.
I LOVE Emeril’s cooking. He’s a serious chef and an excellent businessman/restauranteur, as well. That gets lost in translation when he’s pandering to his Oprah-esque audience, who are just waiting to erupt at his next catch-phrase. As a result of the Pavlovian audience participation and horrible house band, I can never make it through Emeril Live!, but his books and the recipes on FoodNetwork.com are solid gold. That said, I love Bobby Flay’s food too, but he’s such an arrogant D-bag that I can’t watch any of his shows.
I went through crushes on Rachael (I’m so over her!) and Giada, but my #1 Food Network hottie is domestic goddess Nigella Lawson, the sensuous super-MILF from the British Isles. I just wish they’d show her programs more often. If you haven’t seen Nigella yet, here’s a typical clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lrLKa2AAMbk
Poor George. I also like Duff from Ace of Cakes. They just seem like good guys to hang out with.
On the cooking side, I love Alton Brown, the man who made my turkey better, and Nigella Lawson. I also love/hate Giada – cause you know she can cook, but I bet she’s a total bitch off-air.
Alton Brown, definitely. I have a thing for nerdy white guys. There was an episode of that series he did about road food, after he broke his arm, when he travels to L.A. and eats a pastrami burger. I dunno, there’s just something about watching him take a bite… :o
I must be the only person in the world who really doesn’t dig Alton Brown.
I think he’s pretty fantastic inasmuch as he really seems to have turned a lot of people onto cooking, and cooking well, with practical knowledge rather than blindly following recipes. But his kitchen style and mine just don’t mesh and I end up feeling irritated that I perceive him to be laying down the law.
Mind you, I’ve only watched a couple of episodes of Good Eats. So I might not dislike him as much as I think if I watched more. It’s just that my husband was getting irritated with my growling.
If I can qualify things even further, I actually really like working from his recipes. Just can’t take his onscreen persona.
I actually dislike a lot about his show - mainly how he uses a lot of catch phrases over and over (“thusly” and “oh bother” cringe) but the show is entertaining and scientific. Someone I know said they didn’t like Alton because he was so matter-of-fact about how his ways are the best. I agree that’s a little off-putting but still - this is the Bill Nye The Science Guy of food. I love the fact that he helps give you the tools to make the right decisions when cooking and helps you be a smarter cook.
There’s a lot to dislike about Alton but for my money Good Eats is the best show on FoodTV.
I like Paula Deen ok but sometimes she sounds a little too much like one of my aunts that I dislike. And the calories in her dishes! faints
Rachael Ray, Emeril and Bobby Flay make me want to spew. heh
Alton Brown seems like he’d be a cool guy to hang out with. Besides the food science stuff and just being generally very knowledgeable (I bet Rachel Ray couldn’t tell you the smoke point of EVOO if her life depended on it), he’s an avid motorcyclist and rides BMW’s, no less. He’s been known to attend BMW rallies throughout the southeast, and sometimes posts at a bike forum I frequent. Feasting On Asphalt is one of the best depictions of real motorcycle touring in recent memory. If I were riding across the country, I’d rather be with Alton than Jessie James or the Teutuls.
Alton’s a gimme. He’s the Mr. Wizard of the Food Network plus he has a goofy sense of humor.
George Duran seems like a decent guy, I’d have a few beers with him. He’d end up cooking something over the candle on the bar table too.
Really the only ones I can’t stand are the non cooks. Marc Summers (where the hell did they dig him up from? An old prop room at Nickelodeon?) and the guy who drives around in that RV and blows smoke up everyones ass. I just want to punch that guy in the face, the phony asshole.
Tyler Florence can piss me off too, but it’s better since he’s not doing that show where he comes over to talk down to people in their own kitchen and smirk the whole time.
