Preheating

I spy with my little eye a coconut, a lei, a machete, some marijuana, and a yucca plant.


I've always loved cooking shows.

When I was a kid in the mid-80's, the whole family would gather 'round to watch Yan Can Cook on PBS. The food he cooked looked pretty sketchy to an 8 year old kid who was raised on beef, elk and ketchup, but Yan had a hell of a personality. But back in the 80's, especially when they didn't have cable in your area and your parents were too frugal and principled to buy a satellite dish, Yan was pretty much the only game in town¹.

In 5th grade we had an assignment where each student had to do some kind of demonstration in front of the class. One kid made a bird feeder, another showed how to balance a checkbook(!) and everyone else cooked stuff. I had some serious competition, but I knew I could bust out my cooking show wisdom on the class. I showed the class how to make spritzbakken cookies and I used the cooking show "trick" of having the dough and finished cookies pre-made. It was a rousing success, I got an A and no one got sick from eating the cookie dough that sat in my backpack for 7 hours.

Cooking shows were few and far between as a grew up, but I finally got cable for the first time in '99 and Food Network for the first time in '03. It was a revelation to watch all the different personalities, all the yummy food and decadent contests. I found myself watching more and more Food Network over the last few years, and now I'm at the point where the Food Network comprises at least 50% of all tv watching in my household. I don't love everything on the Food Network, and there are some glaring omissions (not a single vegetarian cooking show?!) but they run a pretty tight ship.

Now, on with the show.

¹ PBS did show Julia Child regularly, but I must confess that her appearance kind of freaked me out as a child. Additionally, I think I was already tiring of my beef and elk diet and her meat-heavy French dishes were overloading my system. I became vegetarian when I hit college, but I don't blame Julia Child.

I still enjoy ketchup