Skip to main content

The Next Food Network Star Finale

As the latest season of "The Next Food Network Star" comes to a close, I just wanted to take a minute to highlight the difference between a Food Network Star and the average good home chef. Both of the finalists on the television show are what I would call niche cooks. Jeff is the self-styled "sandwich king" who says you can turn any sandwich into a meal and any meal into a sandwich. Susie's Food Network show concept is "Spice it Up," a show about adding a little extra flare to traditional Mexican cooking. 

Those are great concepts for television shows or cookbooks, but each represents only a single facet of what a good cook delivers at home. We all make sandwiches and learning how to turn leftovers into a sandwich for lunch the next day is a skill we'd all love to have. Let's face it though, if we served sandwiches for every meal, we'd face a dining room rebellion before too long.

Similarly, Susie brings her Mexican heritage to the kitchen. We'd all love to add classic Mexican dishes delivered with a modern twist to our family's menu. It's even an appropriate choice for those occasions when we are entertaining. On the other hand, even though we might all love to "Spice it Up" once in a while, variety is the real spice of life. The United States is the great melting pot, and one of the hidden benefits of our mixed heritage is that at any given moment our own pots might contain almost any flavor found anywhere in the world. Americans, by and large, appreciate the finest cuisine of almost every culture around the world, and a good home cook can make Mexican dishes, Thai dishes, Italian dishes, classic French haute cuisine, and good old southern style barbecue. We are a diverse people with a taste for diversity.

We all want to learn how to cook Mexican dishes, but for the most part, we don't want to limit ourselves to only Mexican dishes. In my cupboard, I have dog-eared cookbooks that each focus on the foods of one of at least a dozen different countries and I'm always looking for more. When I travel to other countries, or even other parts of the United States, I try to pick up a new dish from whatever region I'm visiting.

So, yes, a show that focuses on making sandwiches good enough to serve for dinner when guests are visiting or a show that focuses on modernizing classic Mexican fare are both of interest to most home cooks, but while a TV chef can be a one-trick pony, home cooks need to be ring-masters able to introduce many different acts to their family's table, juggling left-overs and prime quality ingredients from all around the world to create an ongoing performance that never gets boring.

Will I watch "The Sandwich King"? (Jeff won the season and will be getting his own show on the Food Network.) Yes, I'll watch an episode or two, but if he doesn't give me a new act that I can add to my own three-ring kitchen circus, I won't be watching for long. I don't need to hear about his three-year-old son helping in the kitchen or his father's favorite comfort food, I want new recipes, new techniques, and most importantly new flavors presented with enough detail that I can replicate them and decide whether to add them to my family's menu.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fiddlehead Fern Pesto

Fiddlehead Ferns Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2012, all rights reserved. When one orders pesto in a restaurant, one expects the flavor of fresh basil. After all the classic basil pesto recipe is simply fresh basil, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, a little garlic, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Pesto, however, doesn't have to be made with basil. Parsley, cilantro, and a variety of fresh, flavorful greens can be used instead to provide twists on the classic pesto. Pesto, of course, is a thick sauce often used in place of tomato sauce on pasta, but also appropriate for many other dishes. It's great with chicken, with gnocchi, in place of mayo in a sandwich, with pork chops, in place of horseradish with beef, with fish or in almost any dish that can be enhanced by the addition of fresh garden flavors. Since it is springtime in New England, it is the only time of year that we can get fresh fiddlehead ferns. These are often available in the produce department of good grocery...
Post a Comment
Read more

Steamed Wontons and Asian Pork Balls

Wontons folded several different ways and arranged in a bamboo steamer basket Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2012. Do not copy. There are probably as many different wonton recipes as there are cooks in China. Like curries, every cook adds their own flair. Wontons make a great party appetizer or a component of a larger meal. They can also be used to make soup. Although they can be fried, I find that steamed wontons retain more of the flavor of the ingredients. My son was home from college for the holidays and requested that we make some of his favorite meals while he was home as a refresher from college food hall fare. Dad's wontons were on his list, so I took the opportunity to jot down my recipe and take a few photos of the process for this blog. A standard package of wonton wrappers from the grocery store contains about 52 wrappers, this recipe will give you enough filling for an entire package with a little safety margin which can be made into Asian meatballs. Won...
1 comment
Read more

The Chef Show on Netflix

Most of us would like to be better cooks. Most of us also have day jobs that occupy our time and most of our energy so we don't all have the ability or desire to attend culinary school. Nor do we generally have direct access to a top professional chef to oversee our efforts, provide instruction, and correct our mistakes. Our efforts to improve generally need to fall into our leisure activities: cooking, reading, or watching TV. Maybe we'll ask a friend with a particularly good barbecue sauce for his secret, but in general, if it's too much like work, well who wants more work at the end of a busy day. If, however, you're a famous actor/ director with a strong track record, you get to tell your company (the studio), that you'd like them to get you a top chef to train you and that you would like them to pay both of you. That is pretty much what Jon Favreau did with the 2014 movie Chef . I'm not going to review the movie, but I bring it up because it served as t...
Post a Comment
Read more