Padma And Katheee Leee Sex Up The Today Show

Padma was on Today this morning…WITH her clothes on. Hoda and KL asked her about her nude photo shoot. She said she was a model for so many years and had to wear clothes she didn’t like that going without them was fine.

They showed Padma's Carl’s Jr./ Hardees ad...



You know, the one where she’s French-kissing a hamburger.

Now HERE’S something I bet you didn’t notice from that ad. She was wearing her own yellow gold jewelry line.

And she was today as well. Padma showed off a $375 ring and $600 earrings. She tried to make it sound okay by saying that in these hard times, she’d rather spend her money on something real. That’s great, except these days something real is food, shelter and health insurance!

The gals taste her White Sangria. Ooh, you know I love that, except hers has some (ick) star anise. I did like the cut-up mango and kiwi, though.

Padma shows them how to make a lobster salad canapé. She mixes lobster with mayo, chives, parsley and Serrano chilies. (You can use shrimp too.) Padma says if you have lobster as the beginning of the meal, you don’t HAVE to have it as main course(!!!)

Why is Padma being so grossly out of touch with the not-cheap jewelry line and LOBSTER hors d’oeuvres? I’m not even sure what she’s promoting. I suppose it’s her Allure interview and the jewelry, but she’s coming off as really elitist.

Luckily, Hoda saves the day asking about substitutes for the lobster. Padma says you can use white fish or even white beans. THAT would have been the way to go at the start, and then say, if you’re feeling flush, you could use lobster.

Then KL insisted in tasting the lobster the way Padma ate the hamburger.

I won’t be making that anytime soon...

Today, Giada Makes Lasagna

There was nothing revolutionary about Giada’s recipe for a classic lasagna on the Today Show this morning - it was a good all–purpose meat lasagna - but, boy, did it look good! Plus she made two interesting points about the noodles. In this case ONLY, she adds oil to the water, so the noodles don’t stick AND she rinses off the noodles to get rid of the excess starch.

Matt and Meredith were funny and at the same time quite earnest in assembling their lasagnas, in comparison to how Katheee Leee is with her constant interrupting during chef segments.

The Today Show’s site is so easy to use and navigate, unlike a certain food television network’s, that I know it IS possible to produce a useful website without tons of irritating features.

Martin Yan, the Comedian, Wishes Us A Happy Year Of The Ox

I admit that sometimes I forget about people (cooking pros, I’m thinking of at the moment) that have been around for so long, I just take them for granted. Martin Yan deserves much more respect than that.

Even Katheeeee Leeeee couldn't compete with his firecracker sharp delivery this morning on the Today Show. Martin demonstrated Firecracker Beef in honor of Chinese New Year. Touting his healthful cooking, he said, “Look at this physical specimen, I just celebrated my 88th birthday.” Yan can really whoop it up. Plus he can really chop, stir-fry and cook up a storm.

A few years ago he did Firecracker Chicken on the Today Show, which is the same idea, but happily a different recipe.

Today's recipe is here.
Enjoy the video:

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Here And There

Remember when it looked like I was lying (I prefer thinking of it as being "misinformed”) and said Nightline was doing a story on the Iron Chef last Friday? Well, nice of them to tell me, but it was on THIS Thursday - last night.

You really didn’t miss anything, though. The Nightline correspondent, dressed rather inappropriately, I felt, in a bright summer party dress, walked around the set with Alton.

His only anti-fan comment (I'm recalling when I reported that someone else reported, probably 5th hand, that he dissed his overweight fans, supposedly out of their hearing, but not really…) was laughing haughtily at the idea that members of the Iron Chef audience thought they would be fed. (Hmmm, I guess that’s all part of his anti-fat bias.)

They showed the “smoke” from the dry ice that was pumped into the kitchen continuously; we saw the ingredient set-up that each chef works from - “a small grocery store” was how Alton described it; we met the tiny and indomitable Cat Cora; Michael Symon said hi. I like him. He said Iron Chef is no different from what chefs do in a restaurant every night. Yeah, but you don’t have that annoying guy in a suit narrating your every move.

The most interesting thing we learned (but I think we knew this anyway) was that the chefs are given IN ADVANCE three possibilities for the secret ingredient.

The story on the Nightline website is the exact story that was there last week. At least they didn’t change the date. Whatever…But don’t promo something, not have it on, put it your website as if it had been on and then show it a week later as if it were a new story. Harrumph!

***

I’m sure you’ve heard the news of RR’s new venture – DOG (and cat) Food. The GOOD news is that parts of the proceeds are going to the animal welfare arm of her empire.

The BAD news is the name – NUTRISH – I guess a variation of Delish…
GMAB. Even my exterminator (don’t ask, but I will not have ants running around the radon canisters planted all over my granite) thought that was a bit much.



Animals need all the help they can get, but I’m surprised RR wasn’t worried about the inevitable comparison of Nutrish to her REGULAR food. One can only hope the animals got the better deal.

***

Poor Tom Colicchio had a real waste of a morning on the Today Show this morning. I caught him in the middle of being forced to compete with the constantly interrupting Kathee Lee Gifford - Kathie Lie Gifford? or however she spells it. The other, much more muted, women of Today - Meredith, Hoda and Natalie – were also there.

They were tasting three dishes for some contest or other. Several of them had various food issues – no watermelon, no raw fish – not exactly the perfect panel for judging. They tasted the dishes (or whatever part of them they could stomach - Kathie Lee spit one out) and came up with a winner after a quick huddle.

Poor Tom stood 3 feet away, looking completely beaten down by stupidity of this segment. Then he said he’d be back in December. I guess he meant with the next season of Top Chef. This winning segment isn’t on the website yet…(the show is still on) I’ll include it later…

Postscript:

I finally found the video of this segment. The three dishes were made by 3 Top Chef contestants of the season currently filming in New York. Their challenge was to make a dish to be demonstrated on the Today Show. Tom claimed the judges couldn't decide on a winner and needed the Today Show crew to help. (Yeah, right!) The winner will appear on the Today Show to demonstrate the recipe deep into the next Top Chef season.