April 12, 2008

  • Good heavens. Don and I are watching Top Chef.

    This is supposed to be similar to "Next Food Network Star"?

    Apart from the basic premise, there's precious little similarity.  This show is uniformly depressing and annoying.  The literary quote that springs to mind when watching it is "They're all very unpleasant people."

    For they are, whether contestants or judges.  The atmosphere is poisonous.  The blue-line beeping is almost constant at times, as the potty-mouth chefs scream at each other, and when a contestant is sent home it's by being ordered to "Pack your bags and leave."  Gee, how nice. 

    I wish FoodTV were going to have their version of this show again, but here it's almost mid-April and I've not heard a peep about it.  My fear is that Amy Whozit, who won last July, has not been successful (certainly I've never watched her show, which airs at noon on Saturday...have any of y'all?) so the network is nervous about putting in a lot of time and money into a future network star that no-one watches, and decided to give it the go-by.

Comments (9)

  • Anne, they always start out new shows/chefs on mid-day Saturday or Sunday. Then when there are enough shows for reruns, they put them into a more regular rotation. I haven't seen Amy's show, but I wouldn't be surprised if it got picked up. Guy's is on more regularly now, but the winners of Season 1 haven't done as well, but are still on Sunday mornings, I think.

    As for Top Chef, I've enjoyed past seasons more; they were less rancorous (although there was some). I've never seen a big fight like I did on this week's episode, that was embarrassing. I haven't had any sort of connection with any of this years' chefs, and don't know that I'll watch a ton more.

  • Oh, I would expect a newbie to be scheduled for the weekend, but presumably they're still hoping someone other than atheir natural market (spouses, parents, siblings, friends) tunes in, and that their recipes are accessed from the FoodTV's website.

    I've got quite a few of Paula Deen's, for instance, and some others, but don't recall having seen many of Amy's promoted. Seems as if once I clicked on a recipe and it turned out to be hers, but it was months ago.

    One thing I discovered after having posted this last night was that the deadline for submissions to be the future "Next Food Network Star" had been extended to November of last year, which was the third extension. Perhaps the network is having a rough time finding enough potential chef-stars to get a competition going? They'd certainly be wise - based upon this season's Top Chef, at least - to hold out until they locate true contenders.

    I daresay that once they assemble the slate of competitors, it still would be awhile before the actual competition could begin, seeing as how it takes a fair amount of time and these people need to arrange to be away from jobs and families, then there's the actual filming of the various contests, and it's only after that that the show airs.

    Maybe next fall?

  • I LOVE Top Chef!  This year, the contestants are much more qualified, and the challenges and competition are amazing!  Sure, they love to show the discord - these people are very emotional - and I'll watch (and record) all the episodes.

    This is the fourth season - I've watched it from the first and really recommend it, if you can overlook, or chuckle at, the yelling.  Lighten up and give it another try!

  • Well, this was our second time to watch it this season, and we made the same observations last winter or whenever it was. Very unpleasant people, both competitors and judges. We didn't like any of them, so couldn't care less they stayed or left.

    I'll cede Top Chef to you, and wait for FoodTV's chef competition to return.

  • I only watched the Next Food Network Star the very first year they ran it, when the homosexual male couple won, over that classy gal with the show featuring adapting recipes for lower fat/calorie content. She was clearly the best of the lot, and I liked her style more than the Man Couple's, but she was ousted.

    And I never saw the Man Couple's actual show. Are they on still?

  • Last year was my first - and, therefore, only - year to watch Next Food Network Star, so I've no idea. The only previous winner of whom I'm aware is Guy Fiori (sp?) of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

    Which always KILLS me as I want to eat at the places he finds. Rarely healthy, but my goodness, it all looks tasty.

  • Interesting reading this -- I seem to be learning about chefs everywhere this last month.  We just saw Ratatouille for the first time, and remember how the girl says something rather bitter about it being a man's world?  Only a day or two before that we'd been down to George Washington's birthplace where the people were cooking over an open fire in the kitchen (a separate building from the house).  It was a hard job -- people in and out, piles of coals lying around the floor here and there with dutch ovens in them stewing things, the blazing fire in the fireplace going, the cook had to keep dipping her apron and skirts in a pail of water to keep from catching on fire.  She said later that traditionally a professional cook was a man's job because it was so difficult and dangerous.  That was the first time Long John Silver being hired as a ship's cook ever made sense to me.

    And then today I'm reading a Josephine Tey mystery (written in 1937) where it's mentioned in passing that the local restaurant's chef had stabbed the waiter for having dandruf. 

  • Oops, two Fs in dandruff.

    And I also meant to mention that vulgar violent cook in The Canturbury Tales.

  • No kidding? The reason chefs were originally men is because it was so dangerous? I had no idea. That's fascinating.

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