Reviewing the Food Network: All Star Christmas, part III
And then Paula Deen is paired up with Rachael Ray to bake a
pumpkin roll cake. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh...my...god. This is what I've been waiting for all throughout 2005. This is heaven. I didn't even know what they were cooking for the first half of the vignette because I was too busy being all, "oh my god! Paula Deen with Rachael Ray!"
OK. Let's isolate the components of this one. First we have Rachael Ray. If you've ever set e-foot into
www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com, you know where teaMMAtt stands on Rachael Ray. Then we have Paula Deen, and I think we all know where teaMMatt stands on Paula Deen. But
then, we have a pumpkin roll cake. I just don't know what to do with this. My two favorite flavors are lime and pumpkin. They are both seasonal, and right as one goes out of season, the other comes in, and that works really great. This is big.
Paula is teaching Rachael how to bake this thing, and we all know that Rachael Ray does *not* bake. She doesn't even own a measuring cup! [giggle, giggle] It turns out that Rachael does sort of suck at baking, and Paula totally calls her on it. This, of course, does provide RR with plenty oppurtunity to explain her system of "eyeballing it," wherein a tablespoon = about a palmful, a teaspoon = about a half-palmfull, a cup = a couple turns of the pan. She "teaches" this to Paula and by extension "teaches" this to us, but y'all remember that ALoTO quote?
MADONNA: Well I was just thinking, what if I go to catch a fly ball, and oops, my bosoms fall out?
ROSIE O'DONNELL: You think there are men in this country who ain't seen your bosoms?
Well, Rachael Ray, we've all seen your proverbial bosoms. (Readers: don't take this as agitation with RR; I so totally still dig it after hearing it so many times.)
The last thing from this scene I need to discuss is a quote from Paula:
"A couple things we don't skimp on: butter and sugar."
Nick--I am putting that on a tee-shirt for your birthday, dude.
Finally, everything's cooked, and they all walk into the dining room from different doors carrying their dishes. As a former film student, and as someone with a fair amount of stage management experience, all I could think about was how much planning it took to create that spontaneity. Something I didn't think about when I was taking notes on the special but just now realized: why do they all come from different rooms with their dishes in the first place? What business would risotto have coming from the living room?
But that is finally it. And this will mark the last time until late next year that I wish y'all Season's Eatings. Season's Eatings to everyone!
Reviewing the Food Network: All Star Christmas, part II
So the basic set-up of last year's Thanksgiving special was that each star cooks a dish in his own kitchen, be it in Savannah, New York, LA, Roswell, etc., and then they all come to a neutral kitchen with their individual dishes to make a full spread. For Christmas, Emeril has invited everyone over to his house (I think) and they pair off to cook and dish. Either one
person is
"teaching" the other how to make her dish or they're both on equal terms.
Some of the pairings were just plainly predictable. Paula Deen and Emeril, for example, get lumped together. Both are Southern. Get it?
And then Sandra Lee and Bobby Flay cook together, which is also obvious since they both make you want to gag. They're cooking
lobster. For Christmas. I really don't get meat-eaters. They just put the lobster in the pan and cook it. Is that really all you have to do? I know that works for carrots, but I thought that you have to prep meat, either by marinade, by chopping, or at least by killing it. All y'all are just weird.
They pepper the special with confessionals like on
The Real World, except instead of talking about alcohol and ass, they're talking about family traditions and each other. You know those Season's Eatings spots where they put an average FN viewer on a white screen and have him talk about the holidays and food? It's the same thing. They all advertise each other: "Cooking with Blah-blah-blah is just so much fun because he is so blah-blah-blah!" They are basically leaving each other Friendster testimonials. It's a little weird but I kind of like it.
Michael Chiarello cooks something for some reason. He tries to have the "It"-factor that makes me want to purchase action figures of all the other FN stars. He, of course, doesn't. Here is Michael Chiarello being funny:
"You can crush the biscotti however you want to. Sometimes I crush it with
my head."
Here is Michael Chiarello making food and his food-skills accessible to the average viewer:
"Don't be afraid of some caramelization."
Thanks for the laughs, Michael Chiarello.
Later he cooks with Sandra Lee. Gross. In one of her confessionals, she talks about how much energy he has. The editor then cuts to him saying "whoa" with about the same amount of enthusiasm I use when I ask our office manager for another box of paper clips. I think the editor did that on purpose just to be a smart-ass. Good work, editor. I know I complain about Sandra Lee, and I know I'm right to complain, but I really do have to admit that she's pretty hot, albeit alienesque, and I do want to sleep with her.
Remember the blond lady I was talking about back in Part I? The one I said has no business to be on FN, but rather should be on HGTV? OK, turns out she is from HGTV. I checked the
website for the special and found that she is "...Candace Olson, a special guest from HGTV, [who] creates a beautiful backdrop and table setting for the party." Let's briefly discuss the "beautiful backdrop." It is lime green and sky blue. It is pretty; I
really like both of those colors. But this is a Christmas ("Holiday") special, so I mean, what? If this is the crazy fucked up shit that goes on over at HGTV, then I'll pass, thank you very much. I get her point, that she wants to depart from the traditional, and I'm all about that. But she's not so much departing from tradition as she is just stealing another tradition--Easter--and I label it "unsuccessful."
Reviewing The Food Network: All Star Christmas, part I
Show: All Star Holiday Party
Episode: n/a; special
Air date: 12/24/5
Subject: Change of IN THE KITCHEN personnel
The holidays can be a really stressful time because of all the Food Network we watch. 'Season's Eatings' starts before T-Day, and circa December Week 2, it goes crazy! I wanted to review all the delicious programming the Jesus of Cable has been throwing at us, but that, to rip off the NYT when speaking about doing the reading in college, would be to take a sip of water from the fire hydrant. So the best thing to review is the All Star Holiday Party.
Remember last year's All Star Thanksgiving Celebration? That was easily one of the happiest events in my life. You see, it was the sampler platter of everyone important to me seen in each's own element, culminating in their coming together. Every 'In The Kitchen' star (except Ina. Where the fuck was Ina? Paula got in from Savannah, Giada from LA, but passive-aggressive Ina couldn't get to the FN HQ in Chelsea from Long Island?!) prepared a dish for the feast in his own style and his own kitchen. Then, they all bring it to the same table. I wanted to hug my television. When I saw Cold Mountain with Isaac, he wept. He said it was because he read the book, and when you're with those characters for 500 pages, you really become attached, so when Jude Law dies, it's devastating. To me, that meant he must have been bored senseless twice. But the point is, these cooking show stars are my life, and when they come together, I am happier than I am at any other point of my life ever.
So they did it all over again for X-mas 2K5. The 'In The Kitchen' roster has changed so much this short year. Present were:
Rachael Ray: as if the FN could do anything without their perky money-maker.
Paula Deen: who cooks with Rachael! Merry Christmas from the FN!
Emeril: I think it's at his "house."
Sandra Lee: whenever I think someone is more qualified to comment on something than I, I will use his commentary. Nick is loads more qualified than I am to discuss Sandra Lee. I asked him for a quote; what he gave me was a tour de force. That will be published as its own entry.
Bobby Flay: whatever.
Michael Chiarello: he's worthless. I don't get why he has a FN show. His pitch to the network must have been something to the affect of, "I am going to cook things on television."
Some Blond Girl: she decorates things. Is she really on the FN? If so, they should totally move her show to HGTV where she would be more welcome but could stay on the Scripps Network's payroll. She will prove to be worthless as well.
Absent from last year's Thanksgiving, sadly, are:
Sara Moulton: She had to grow on me, but boy, did she! I don't even know if she's still an 'In the Kitchen' chef. If she isn't, we're all the less without her.
Alton Brown: love him, and he represents from Roswell, GA. This Christmas would have been substantially more entertaining if we had apple cider made over a Bunson burner. Again, our loss.
Tyler Florence: and what good riddance! Why be part of a team when he can just boss Jack around on How to Boil Water, you know? I love Jack. I hate Tyler. [cocaine and super-model comment deleted]
Giada di Laurentiis: I now know what it would be like if I had to present my body to someone but didn't have my left arm.
As you can probably gather, the times are changing, and I don't like it. 2003-4 are now evident to have the optimum melange of personalities on this network. But the year is 2005, and I only have what they give me.
Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week
The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week was the montage in 1988's A Very Brady Christmas wherein Alice is charged with rounding up all the arriving Brady children at LAX while Florence Henderson and the father have to set up beds for everybody! Alice be-bops around the airport picking up all the full grown kids (Jan's marriage is falling apart!), and she gets herself into all kinds of crazy mishaps. For example, she's pushing one of the Brady boy's luggage cart and steps onto the moving sidewalk--but in the wrong direction!! Meanwhile, back at the house, the lovely lady and her man named Brady are busy trying to figure out where all these people are gonna sleep! They have to set up all kinds of complicated cots, roll out sleeping bags that are just stuffed with leaves, fold out those pesky twin bed fold-aways that have a tendency to snap shut on you, AND pull a queen mattress up the Brady staircase!! You can only guess how funny this all is.
As the montage finishes, each Brady walks through the door
(1) (after ringing the doorbell and being invited in. Huh?), and it all ends with Alice carrying
all the bags, and boy, is that funny!
I hesitantly chose this as the MATISoTVTW
over some of the South Park Christmas specials that have been on. Y'all. You *have* to watch these things. These things make me so mad because I know I will never be as smart or keen as Trey Parker/Matt Stone. Tonight I saw the "Critters' Christmas" one which was expectantly unbelievable . Try really hard to see this one. You'll die when they rhyme "a portion" with "abortion." Comedy Central is airing a lil mini marathon X-mas Eve of South Park X-mas Specials.
***
(1) -- I was kind of humbled when I watched the reunion-moment and realized that our families will not ever look as they do in the memory we have of them from when we were kids. The grown-ups get old, the kids do stupid things (like grow moustaches in the big Brady boy's case), and the world just isn't going to look like the '80s again. A friend recently pointed out that algos is the Latin for "pain, grief, distress," as in "nostalgia."
Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week
This week's Simpson's episode (and let me qualify "this week's": with DVR, I don't have any idea when the shows I am watching originally aired. So "this week's" episode of any given show may well be a Halloween episode or some such nonsense.) was lame, lame, lame, no shock. It was "The Simpsons Do Italy," which they've done before, only they called it "Africa" or "Japan" or "Disneyworld," and you know, we get it. Italians make-a the pizza and drive-a the Ferrari. It's kind of sad that Groening and co. have to take the obvious, but they are still the Simpsons, and God bless 'em.
But the reason I'm talking about I Simpsoni is because "this week's" was a Sideshow Bob episode, and plenty of the jokes were throw-backs to the good old days when Conan O'Brian was writing (TRIVIA! What band lost its founder due to his choice to redirect his career and become a Simpsons animator? Answer at the end.) which include my all-time favorite episode, "Cape Feare."
That's the one where Bart enters the Witness Protection Program and features some great comedy moments, listed in bullet form:
"The CIA Sings the Hits of Gilbert & Sullivan" tape.
Homer running in Bart's room with hockey mask to show him his new chainsaw.
The rakes.
Bart running to the stern of the boat: alligators. Runs to the bow: eels. Runs back to the stern: alligators. Bart: "Oh yeah."
Bart foils SB by having him sing HMS Pinafore in its entirety.
In this episode, Bob steps on the rakes again, and so does lil Sideshow Bob, and that was the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week, but only because it harked back to, like, the best Simpsons episode ever.
This episode, I'll note, tried to marry the word "plagiarizer" with Peter Griffen, and that's just really sad because Seth MacFarlane is totally kicking Matt Groening's ass right now in the quality battle. In the sucking battle, though, Matt G. (the other one) has the lead. But then, above "plagiarizer of a plagiarizer" was the picture of the guy from that other Seth MacFarlane cartoon that everyone hates. And for that, Simpsons, good work. Jaclyn says that show has its good moments, but they're spread much farther apart than on Family Guy, and it just isn't worth the work.
(ANSWER: Eric Stefani left the band he started with his [brunette!] sister after Album 2, sometime in the middle of writing Tragic Kingdom.)
Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week
OK. So the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week actually (ding!) came from last week. It was the Thanksgiving week episode of Commander in Chief, or as I've started calling it, Geena in Charge. And that Thing was the star of the movie Dead Man on Campus joining CiC's cast!
Right before the credits, they whipped out what I think might be one of the most dramatically planned shots ever in TV.
The reason Zack is in the White House is to help President Davis with her--ready for it--re-election! Aaah! Mac has 2 years left in her term, and with ABC talking re-election, it looks like we're on our way to syndication! MTG's fear of an assassination attempt on Sexy Redheads in Power is completely unfounded.
This is such good news that it beat out Nutcracker on Ice as the MATISoTVTW. Word.
