bourdain might try a bit too hard to uphold the whole chef with a ‘tude persona, but he does get props for eating all kinds of weird shit. kitchen confidential is awesome and I recently bought his ‘les halles’ cookbook. the recipes are not necessarily mind-blowing. but then again, theyre meant to be mostly faithful french dishes, and that they certainly are. the best thing about the recipe book is the skull-with-a-chefs-hat and cross-knives on the cover.

this little blog post of his is pretty spot-on though. the food network is killing off all they’re classic (read: good) shows in favor of new ‘time-saving, calorie-cutting’ filler. people like sandra lee represent the downfall of food tv—nay, the downfall of man. in brief, she buys stuff from the store, puts it all together and claims she ‘cooked’ something (fry batter made with ranch dressing sachets, wtf?). this movement towards ‘time-saving’ nutrionless supermarket assembled junk is depressing. on the other hand, a show like molto mario, which is, imho, the best show ever to grace food network, offered simple (and thus authentic) italian dishes and the brilliant mario batali, gots the axe. ahhh mario…as bourdain agrees, mario batali is one of the most underrated genius chefs of our time. just watching one episode of molto mario. i credit mario in part with my great respect for italian cuisine: it emphasizes quality of (few) ingredients prepared to not be overprepared. the guy kicks ass and takes names on iron chef america too. mario batali…don’t get me started.

fuckin hell, i remember when the food network was ready, set, cook! and hot off the grill with bobby flay and jackie malouf…

anyway, here’s what bourdain had to say

note the 440 comments on his article. here’s me favorite:
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I’m always up for some Sandra Lee bashing because I believe there is no greater force for evil in the culinary world. Actually, it’s an insult to use the words “culinary” and “Sandra Lee” in the same sentence, so forgive me. I’ll go mainline a ranch dressing packet as punishment. What sucks for anyone who really appreciates food is that Food Network is a business. An advertising and affiliate sales-driven business. They have to hire talent who will actually use the products that advertisers are buying time to promote. And, they have to hire talent that appeals to the lowest common denominator when it comes to cable subscribers. TVFN has become a hybrid of WWF, NASCAR, The View and Friends — appealing only to people who say “hey buddy” and do finger-guns with a wink when they meet people, and find the jokes on popsicle sticks hilarious. I think TVFN should give Mikey his own show and call it “Whatever, Dude” and let him do his thing. At least the boy can cook and would never let the word “tablescape” escape from his lips. Fucking Sandra Lee…….
DinerGirl | February 08, 2007 at 11:56 AM
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thanks e