Bon Appétit

I never realized how much I missed the old Food Network until I watched my first season of the 'Great British Bakeoff.'

When Food Network began, it was food porn.  Amazingly talented chefs making great meals, and showing you how to make them yourself.  It was never supposed to be dumbed down, or simple.  It was geared to be as accessible a you wanted it to be.  'Yes cleaning a lobster is work, but you don't have to do it if you don't want to.  If you want to try, here's how to do it.'  It was never apologetic for having top notch chefs explain how to cook good food right, complicated or not, and to share their opinions.

But eventually they shifted away from real cooking, and became obsessed with competition shows, flashy gimmicks and F-list celebrities screaming "they're in it to win it!"  Gone were the Anthony Bourdain's and the Emeril Lagasse's, and in their place was unqualified personalities talking about how a box cake mix was just as good as homemade (looking directly at you Sandra Lee).

For a better perspective, Alton Brown, whose 'Good Eats' show was darn entertaining, was one of the weaker shows in their early lineup. Today, Alton Brown is probably the most seasoned chef still on air, but he no longer delivers simple recipes delivered with comedy and cooking smarts.  Now he tells people they have to make pancakes with no eggs, to be cooked on a snow shovel.

If Food Network had done the 'Great British Bakeoff,' all the chefs would be pretty people hamming it up for the camera, or tattooed, pierced, gothed up pseudo-punks.  The baked goods would have to include stupid ingredients like candy corn or musk ox liver.  They'd have a bikini week!  Gradually they'd take away utensils the bakers needed, all while Kate Gosselin screamed how "that's the most delicious candy corn and musk ox focaccia bread I've ever tasted!" It would be an unmitigated disaster.  Food Network would run it for 15 years.

I'd stopped watching Food Network when their evenings seemed to be 40 episodes of 'Diners, Drive Ins and Dives.'  For the record, it's a good show for when you travel someplace, researching for restaurants to try.  But most of the time it's just a show about a place that serves a burger with the weird topping of the week (Those Fritos make it the real deal!).  To be positive, I think Ina Garten is still one of the greatest chefs I've ever seen.  But it's too little for me to tune in

The first time I had Bon Appétit's YouTube Channel show up in my suggestion feed, it was for a 'Gourmet Makes' where Chef Claire Saffitz had to make a gourmet version of a gas station food.  I was instantly hooked, not because of the gas station food, but of the brilliance of Claire who, as a really good chef, was applying all her skill and knowledge to try to make a better version of said snack.  I actually featured her on the Friday Link a few months back (https://progressivecitizenx.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-friday-link-for-111519.html).

Over the last two and a half months, I have watched probably 60 of the Bon Appétit videos.  'Gourmet Makes' are the best, but I love 'It's Alive' with Brad Leone, 'Reverse Engineering' with Chris Morocco, 'Test Kitchen Talks,' 'From the Test Kitchen,' and pretty much anything with Molly Baz, Carla Music, Priya Krishna, Sohla El-Waylly, and Rick Martinez.  And sweet lord do I love Gaby Melian.  She's adorable!

And they are ALL sensational cooks,  sometimes using strange and exotic ingredients, sometimes just making a bologna sandwich!  They all would put every chef on the Food Network to shame.  I know they would never say that, but I would!   Watch for yourself.  You'll truly enjoy watching cooking shows again.  If you are a foodie like myself, I cannot recommend it enough.

And for the record, Food Network has become over baked.