Rachel Ray Must Be Banished To Where She Came From..

I've been giving a lot of thought to cooking lately. As the primary chef in the family, my wife will put a frozen pizza in the oven but that's about it, I haven't had to cook since we gutted our kitchen a couple months ago. But, as the project completion date grows near with our granite counter being installed next week, my thoughts have returned to cooking and to wondering if I still remember how.

I am a fan of the food network and have been watching in more than usual in anticipation of the return of my cooking duties. I will turn it on during the day as background noise as I do other stuff around the house. On personality that I've always liked is Rachel Ray , but only in the small doses that the food network parcels her out in. On the Food Network she gets a half an hour here talking about traveling on $40/day, a half an hour there for her to cook a 30 minute meal, and in these small, focused morsels she was easy to swallow. Her cooking, if not gourmet, is practical and most of the time results in something vaguely edible if not gastronomically superb, and for that I’ve always given her somewhat positive credence. That said, who in their right mind thought to give her an hour long syndicated talk show?

I tried to watch it the other day and it was excruciating. She can't, and I emphasize can't, hold a conversation that long, it is just not that entertaining to watch her move from segment to segment and still be engaged in what she's doing. Her strength is, apparently, in short quips about various shortcuts you can take in technique or how much she likes marshmellow fluff or a tip on a good restaurant. These short packets of bubbly perky knowledge are enough to fill a half hour show, these strengths, however, do not transfer to her being entertaining enough for a whole hour that isn't focused narrowly on food.

I wish they would give an hour long show, however, to Alton Brown. I'd watch him talk about the behavior of negative ions in a spaghetti sauce for an entire day.