Reality

Food on TV, and a love letter to Alton Brown

/ Katie Man / 3 Comments

While watching my fiftieth or so episode of Good Eats, I realized that I had never once prepared a recipe shown on the show. Same for Chef at Home, Top Chef, Iron Chef America…  It was delicious entertainment. But I felt guilty. Should I be cooking along? Or is it okay to sit back and enjoy the view?

For me, the pleasure I get from watching cooking shows is watching a professional create something beautiful from something simple. The chef takes ingredients and procedures that I understand, and from those known elements the chef produces a dish I don’t quite understand. Yeah, I “understand” how to brown butter for a sauce, but I don’t get why it’s so goddamn delicious.

It’s magic as far as I know. I have proof that it’s magic, as I have watched on multiple occasion my brother, a chef, create the same delicious sorcery in plain view. I see what’s happening but don’t quite “get it.” This experience is replicated daily in the relationship between television chef and home cook.

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Email Roundtable #7 – The Fantasy Reality Edition

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

In this “all-game” version of the Roundtable we attempt to discuss the reality shows we would like to be on. 

(Disclaimer: during this Roundtable, Jane was having some email issues but still, as always, did a wonderful job).

Kerri: Thanks for the suggestion for this Roundtable, Katie. In keeping with the reality show theme, I think we will make this an all-game version of the Roundtable (of course, we will still have our regular shout outs at the end). The first part of the game is (per Katie’s suggestion): which reality show, past or present, would you like to be on or think you would do well on? 

Katie: I have a lot of answers to this question, so please bear with me. The first is a game show, and it is the easiest game show on TV: Wheel. Of. Fortune!! I would love to be on Wheel because I know that I would dominate. It is so easy to win a lot of money and the contestants never really seem that smart.

Kerri: Personally, I would kill to be a judge on Top Chef. I know that’s kind of cheating. But, I mean, really? Would there be a better job? Or, better yet, a judge on Top Chef Masters.

Speaking of which, I’m enjoying the new season of Top Chef quite a lot so far. They have been shaking things up a bit, which is great and they came up with an ingenious idea to pick the contestants at the start of the season. I like!

Katie: To properly answer the question, I think I would do well at Big Brother. Being good at physical challenges isn’t much of an advantage, so I’m good there. Also, I consider myself a pretty good listener – so in a house full of loudmouths I feel I would do ok. The biggest problem would be the smell of 12 adult humans living in a small house. I’m pretty sure the smell would get to me. I can’t stand dirty people.

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Survivor: Philippines

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

If you haven’t seen Survivor this season but plan to (and you should!), you probably want to avoid this post!

Full disclosure: I’ve been in a committed relationship with Survivor for 25 Seasons. After years and years of the same or similar scenarios with less and less interesting contestants, I must admit I was getting a little bored and started looking around at flashier, sexier reality show options. Any relationship that lasts that long is bound to go through some ups and downs. But I have stuck with it (I’ve seen every episode and I’m not saying that because I think I deserve any credit but, on the other hand, I deserve credit) and I must tell you that right now me and Survivor are in a really good place: comfortable, yes, but still surprising.

And I’m just going to go ahead and say it: this season of Survivor (Philippines) is turning out to be one of my favourites. In order to keep things relatively fresh, every 2 seasons of the show in recent years has included some kind of gimmick (think “Redemption Island”). This season has included gimmicks to be sure but instead of messing with the natural flow of the game, these changes and alterations have been clearly calculated and mapped out ahead of time in the way that only the best kinds of games are. Here are some of the reasons for my current enjoyment:

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Wanting What You Can’t See

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

storage lockers

Storage Wars is a reality show about people who buy other people’s junk. One of many shows about picking through trash and hoping to find treasure, Storage Wars sets itself apart by having a very unique premise. Instead of attending a garage sale or flea market and purchasing one item or two, the principle characters of the show attend auctions and bid on entire storage units. Consequently, when they win a locker, they are stuck with the good and the bad contained within. Spoiler: it’s mostly bad. But like searching for a thumbtack in your junk drawer, or for that one last cheesy Bugle in a bowl of Bits ‘N Bites, rummaging through a freshly purchased storage locker must provide the new owner with the delicious anticipation of unearthing a pirate’s booty. I can see why it might become addictive. Find one box of antique guns – or stack of comics – or rack of fur coats – and all the hours of sifting through bags of garbage become forgotten. The pursuit of hidden treasure becomes as rewarding as the gem you may eventually find.

Herein lies the fun of the show itself. It engages our imagination. Reviewing the show, Todd VanDerWerff writes how the mystery of the what’s inside the locker is more interesting than actually finding out what’s in it. In the words of one of the show’s stars, Jarrod Schulz:

“It’s not about what you can see. It’s about what you can’t.”

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