An Aria In The Kitchen

Remember that horrible Italian cooking show with David Rocco that I told you about on The Cooking Channel?

"I had no idea what a throwback was waiting for me until I watched Rocco’s La Dolce Vita. OMG!

…I KNOW it was filmed in 2004, but it felt like it was from the 70’s.

...I have no idea who this David Rocco is. I only know what I see – super skinny, small-framed, slicked-back compromised hairline, fluent in Italian, with lots of “zany” friends…

I haven’t told you the worst. Throughout the ENTIRE show is this 70’s, actually 60’s maybe, even FIFTIES, Italian music with vocals by what must be the Italian version of Andy Williams."

In contrast to that, my buddy Tom just sent me this charming video:

Now if THIS guy ever decides to leave his day job, he should have his own show on the Cooking Channel. AND they should leave it completely in Italian. I could watch him juggling tomatoes or, of course, listen to him singing all day long.

The New Cooking Channel - Oy!

My gal Cynthia had a special request of me. She asked me to take a close look at the new Cooking Channel and tell her what I thought. She was a little confused by some of the programming and wanted another opinion. Well, when Cynthia asks, I comply. She does so much for her readers (and friends) that I planned an afternoon of Cooking Channel watching.

On a Sunday afternoon about a week ago, after 3½ hours (!!!) of watching the Cooking Channel (this WAS for Cynthia), I arrived at my conclusion - I was completely bewildered and befuddled by what I had seen and why we needed another cooking channel to show THIS.

After that afternoon spent with the CC, I needed to get away. Where? To the 2010’s! Why? Because the majority of what I watched was older than 5 years, and, actually, felt twice that.

WHY are they showing programs from 2004? WHY? I know they’re showing the Frugal and Galloping Gourmets and Julia from the 70’s. That’s fine. That’s history.

But what I watched was just kitschy. Really awful. What was particularly galling was watching this closer-to-a-decade-than-NOT stuff, which featured people I’ve never heard of and don’t really care to.

“Bill”, for example. Nice guy, but since I have no clue who he is, I have no idea where that gorgeous beach is that they keep showing. I’m thinking maybe he’s in Hawaii, which I would love, because the beginning of the show has a lot of Asians in it. But they never mention Hawaii…or anywhere.

This Bill-person cooks for 2 kids and a wife and has an uncomprehendingly big smile on all the time. Did I really need him to show me how to mash 6 raspberries with yogurt? I am not kidding. AND it wasn’t even Greek yogurt, because, of course, more than half a decade ago that wasn’t the trend.

“Bill” makes muesli (woo-hoo!) and then moves on to fried rice.

It was SUCH a poorly executed fried rice that I was about to send a telegram to Cynthia telling her not to waste her time with this network. Oh, but of course, THIS is 2010, no telegrams necessary. I can tweet or text or just tell her HERE.

I think this is the video of that recipe, but since it kept buffering and never actually loaded, it’s hard to tell.

Cynthia, here’s another reason not to watch good old Bill. He made this rice pilaf-type dish. Right before he put it in the oven, he bunged a can of tuna on top and added some raw sliced zucchini. I nearly gagged. The zucchini would give off a lot of liquid and end up being steamed almost…ugh. It was unattractive, not tasty-sounding and almost 1950’s casserole-like.

The next half hour of The Cooking Channel was redeemed by Tyler in a vintage 2003 episode on pizza, although his choice of toppings was slightly unappealing – Robiola, caramelized onions, pancetta and shaved white truffle. But still it was Tyler, so it was okay. Nigella rounded out that hour with comfort food. She seemed positively modern in this show taped only in 2007. Just yesterday compared to Billie Boy.

Maybe Rachel Allen will be better. Her show was a repeat from two thousand and NINE. But, um, didn’t this network just start a few weeks ago?

Again, no real introduction was offered, so I have no idea who Rachel Allen is and where she’s from. Britain, I’m guessing. (Oh, Bill turned out to be from Australia.)

I admit I took a little shuteye at the beginning of the episode (I was still recovering from that rather tranquillizing Bill), but I woke to find Rachel teaching a cooking class. They were doing a chocolate layer cake.

This could be good, given my predilection for cooking classes…except that it wasn’t. I love many Brits, I really do, but this cake was the spongy, dry kind of cakes that Brits like, nothing like the deeply chocolate, moist, fudgy cakes that we American bakers are so fond of.

All of that is fine for teaching a class in Britain, because those people LIKE this kind of cake, but WHY are we seeing it in Amurica?!!

The episode gets worse. After the dry-looking, vaguely chocolate cake comes out of the oven, Rachel has them make a minuscule amount of (boring) buttercream with a tiny amount of cocoa, butter and powdered sugar. That’s the kind of icing that kindergartners make!

The abomination continues when Rachel has them fill ONLY the center of the cake with the pedestrian icing. The top has powdered sugar or cocoa if you like. Dreadful.

THEN they sit around some rickety old table (supposedly charming because they’re in the country) and proclaim that it was the best cake any of them had ever made. WELL, I’m sure THAT was true!

Do yourselves a favor. Get a copy of ANY Maida Heatter book and bake from that.

I revived myself with a cup of tea and began to watch David Rocco. Everything I’ve said in this post up to this point has been a complete exaggeration! I had no idea what a throwback was waiting for me until I watched Rocco’s La Dolce Vita. OMG!

Seriously, I KNOW it was filmed in 2004, but it felt like it was from the 70’s. Honestly, it could have been in black and white and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Again, I have no idea who this David Rocco is. I only know what I see – super skinny, small-framed, slicked-back compromised hairline, fluent in Italian, with lots of “zany” friends. AND he was on for about 2½ hours in episode after episode.

Oh, I haven’t told you the worst. Throughout the ENTIRE show is this 70’s, actually 60’s maybe, even FIFTIES, Italian music with vocals by what must be the Italian version of Andy Williams.

Actually, THIS was the worst. He made a pasta pizza. He took a bunch of old sauced spaghetti, added it to a few poorly beaten eggs and threw it in a sauté pan with A LOT of olive oil. He did get it nice and crisp on the bottom, then turned it over and fried the other side. That was it. No onions, no cheese, no nada. NO GOOD!

Get me out of here! I need to tweet, Ipad and sous-vide my way back to modern times. The Cooking Channel has left me with a weird feeling, like watching old home movies and being glad that people don’t wear their hair like that anymore.

I really don’t really need an entire network to make me feel obsolescent. That's what my kids are for.

I’m assuming (hoping, praying) that they’re playing around with the schedule and what I saw isn’t what is really going to be the final Sunday afternoon lineup. Please no! If the cooking channel is just where old food network shows go to heaven, then just say so and call it the Food Network Redux or Food Network Heaven. Whatever, but please don’t pretend you’re showing us new content.

BTW, the Cooking Channel’s website is just as outrageously bad as the Food Network’s. I went to Bill Granger’s page, (yes, I finally looked up his full name) and searched for his Fried Rice recipe. I got these - definitely not fried rice and not even Bill’s recipes. And c’mon, Tarte Tatin???!!! Arrggghhh!!!

THIS is funny too. THIS is what happened when I searched for Bill’s muesli recipe (which went with his revolutionary yogurt and 6 raspberries). YUP! The exact same recipes came up for Muesli as for Fried Rice!!! ‘Splain THAT to me!

Cynthia, on Sunday’s at least, skip the Cooking Channel and read a book, a good cookbook and you’ll learn a lot more.

Have You Kissed A Veteran Today? Plus The New Cooking Channel

I did! My father-in-law.

I hope you had a happy Memorial Day! We had way too much food and this is the only evidence (except for my overloaded fridge with leftovers) of the entire meal. Sorry!

This was dessert. It's the Blackberry Cobbler from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook. It was sensational. The best part was the lime zest zinging up the blackberries. Wait, I forgot the ice cream. Here you go.

I'll tell you all about the cobbler and Blackberry Farm in my next post. Don't remind me if I said that last time.

But, first, did anyone catch the premier of the Cooking Channel? After my company left, I turned it on for just a second and I saw a group of young men EATING PIZZA OUT OF A GARBAGE CAN! I kid you not. Then they proceeded to eat more pizza off a model of a geodesic dome. WHAT was going on?

After a little research, it turned out that THIS was what I was watching. And that wasn’t a garbage can they were eating the pizza out of; it was a box formed by pizza dough (the episode was called 3D pizza) and they were scooping fillings out of the box to put on their ripped pieces of pizza dough, which were the walls of the box. Gross.

Then I noticed that the next show was called Drink Up! and it was about “everything you always wanted to know about beer”.

It suddenly occurred to me that I definitely do not fit into the demographic of this new network's target audience. I had thought it would be a COOKING network with COOKING shows, but after my first exposure to it, it seemed more geared to frat boys.

Oh well. I wonder if my first glance will be my last.