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Isn't Alton Brown infamous for being really mean and dismissive to people he doesn't quite agree with- particularly his fans? Also, I disagree with his take on "food trends" (namely slow food and molecular gastronomy) as being terrible for the "essence" (or whatever) of cooking. I kind of feel like he'd have been angry at the invention of the stove because "tending a fire and proper chimney maintenance are basic essentials" and God forbid people try new things. I like what he's about and does, but I don't really like him. And I just finished Anthony Bourdain's new memoir, Medium Raw- which has a whole lot to say about celebrity "chefs" (I agree with his take that a cook who's never worked in a professional kitchen shouldn't be called a chef) and the Food Network. Not much of it is very nice, but he does go into the history of the channel and talks about a lot of the problems with its business model and the state of food media (namely that it's the same problem that you see with the History Channel and Discovery, where actually instructive and deep shows get shitcanned for less "academic" fare and the network does much better financially because of it). And that no matter what pros and cons everyone on that network might have, the incontestable truth is that Sandra Lee is the Worst Thing. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 1, 2011 |
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Dec 1, 2011 21:16
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Declan MacManus posted:I love Anthony Bourdain, even though he strikes me as (possibly) a tremendous rear end in a top hat. I'd love to spend a day with him, though, because he's a fascinating person who's been to fascinating places. I can't recommend Medium Raw enough. It's his "after I became a 'media person' and spent the last decade as a television host" memoir- and since my first introduction to him was through No Reservations I like it better than Kitchen Confidential. He's really self-deprecating about his ability (he goes out of his way to say he isn't a 'chef' and hates being referred to as one since he hasn't done kitchen work in a decade and that he wasn't great- by his standard- when he was in the industry) and seems to hold a ton of respect for talented cooks and really anybody who works in the service industry. At the same time, his take on what he calls "normal people" isn't disrespectful or condescending at all and his opinions on what nonprofessionals should know how to do to be "good cooks" are more reasonable than Alton Brown's. His 'rear end in a top hat' cred comes from his continuous and vocal calling-out of whatever he considers bullshit in the food and food entertainment industries, while repeatedly making the point that he's not using himself or his experiences as any benchmark. I know people who've met him and had drinks with him in NYC and, as Timeless Appeal said, I've heard firsthand that he's really nice but awkward- like he's sort of uncomfortable being well-known. He apparently goes to restaurants and "chef bars" and hangs out with kitchen staffers- from head chefs to busboys- all the time wherever in the world he goes. It's easy to think of him as just that sarcastic TV host/celebrity chef, but he worked like a dog in New York kitchens at weird hours for almost 30 years before he became famous- and was a straight-up junkie for a large part of that time. At one point in Medium Raw he more-or-less implores any potential book tour visitors to stop giving him drugs, because as a long-recovered addict, he won't be doing any of them. Apparently tons of kids (mainly at culinary schools, where he's become a sort of counterculture figure-much to his apparent chagrin) try to hand him blunts/dimebags/baggies of coke or sneak them into his pockets or offer to get him high all the time. Conduit for Sale! posted:That's not his view on molecular gastronomy at all. That's fair. I take a bit of it back. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Dec 2, 2011 |
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Dec 2, 2011 03:46
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ToastyPotato posted:Words cannot express the level of annoyance that I feel with music rights issues on TV shows and rebroadcasting. It's like the big fiasco with the music on the Daria DVDs.
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Dec 4, 2011 19:54
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Yoshifan823 posted:I just reminded myself of the single best episode of any food-related show ever, No Reservations' Technique special. It's basically a bunch of motherfucking fantastic chefs teaching you how to do some of the most basic and fantastic dishes that you need to know. Yeah, that episode was great. There's a chapter in Medium Raw where Bourdain talks about "normal people" cooking and what everyone should be able to do to cook "well"- and, like I said earlier in the thread, it's all pretty fair and basic. What it boils down to is: Know how to use tools well (know how to dice/mix/etc. correctly), know your basic skills (steaming/sautéing/grilling/etc)-but for real (none of that "yeah, I'm a man. I know how to grill" nonsense you see in backyards all across America, ruining good meat), know how to pick ingredients, and have a set palette of a few dishes that you've practiced and are comfortable with enough that you'd share them with others.
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Dec 10, 2011 01:22
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Business Octopus posted:A bunch of them are youtube "chefs." So be proud of yourself for not knowing about epic meal time. Fixed that for you. Epic Meal Time was sort of interesting back when my meat-obsessed roommate and I would watch like 5 minutes of it and maybe share a moment or two on facebook- but it really is a travesty.
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Dec 10, 2011 23:40
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screenwritersblues posted:For the past few weeks, I've been finding myself watching Good Eats at 11:00 in the morning. I never watched the show before in my life and now I'm kicking myself for being a complete idiot for not doing so. I follow Alton Brown on Twitter and he's pretty drat funny on it, so I figured why not watch it and see what all the hype is about. *misses the last 6 pages, posts an earnest, honest comment about AB from the heart, untainted by all of our speculation, cynicism, or bellyaching. Actually mentions cooking.
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Dec 11, 2011 09:50
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