An Unlikely Expert

I felt sorry for Ali Velshi last night. His colleagues over at CNBC had the Oracle of Omaha on all morning, chatting about the economy. Ali was hosting Larry King that night. He had a great opportunity to consult with experts and answer viewers’ questions. And guess who Ali was stuck with as his guest on the uber-popular talk show? RACHAEL RAY! Yup, he had RR...looking rather prosperous... educating us on the foibles of today’s economy.

Truthfully, RR did just fine talking about how to stretch one’s food budget to meet leaner times. She told us her audience is comprised of regular people and they love her meals for under 10 dollars. She advised us to go back to the way our grandparents bought food. Buy a whole chicken and use it throughout the week.

Ali certainly showed he was no food expert when he asked if canned or fresh vegetables were the more economical way to go. Her answer? The farmer’s market, whenever possible.

Rachael did give one completely incorrect answer, though, to one of Ali’s labored questions. (I really did feel for him having to prepare for a Rachael Ray interview, instead of his more serious ones.) He asked if it was true that sometimes buying in bulk is actually more expensive than buying smaller individual items…that the unit price of the bigger size can be more. MY answer? YES, Ali, that IS true sometimes and THAT’S the reason you must always check the prices on things, big and small. In an effort to screw the consumer, suddenly the smaller box of cereal will cost less per cup than the larger size. RR just dismissed this out of hand, even after encouraging us to look at the unit prize.

She also should have made the point that it doesn’t always make sense to buy super-sized stuff, if you don’t finish it and it goes to waste. ALSO, if it encourages your family members to eat more unhealthily – a vat of mayonnaise may encourage more liberal use than a small jar – it becomes not worth it.

After Ali mentioned Rachael’s personal fortune, I did love it when she said, “I try to give it away as quick as I make it. I live the same as I did many years ago. I don’t have fun living like THAT.”

Actually, I do find it rude to mention someone’s net (or gross) worth right to his or her face. RR’s claiming not to know how much she makes is fine with me.

However, given the choice between listening to these two gurus, I think I’ll pick Warren.

Gordon Ramsay Does Larry

There was something slightly discomfiting about the way Gordon Ramsay answered the same question over and over on Larry King last night. After talking about his abusive father, he refused to see to any connection between his early years and his over-the-top anger. Larry was less annoying than usual as he intimated, as did various callers, that what he dishes out in the kitchen mirrors this childhood abuse.

Gordon tried to explain it away by saying that it takes THAT kind of passion when striving for unparalleled excellence. He repeated several times that slinging a burger or making a Caesar salad is one thing, but, what he does, requires an almost inhuman effort.

When asked by Larry if he was still angry at his father, he said he forgave him, but couldn't forget. Then Larry asked him about his own family. "Everything my father did, I'm doing the opposite"...as a father, even though he described himself as "never (being) a hands-on Daddy." I thought that was rather sad. I'm sure when he's home, he's a wonderful engaging father, but kids actually like to spend time with both parents.

I know his explosive personality is obviously what makes him so compelling to watch. And, obviously, he knows what he's talking about when it has to with food and restaurant kitchens. But I still would have preferred it if he had just come out and said, yes, a bad temper is in his blood...that he saw it modeled by his father for so long, and that's how HE learned to deal with conflict. A little self-knowledge goes a long way and it would probably make us watch him even more, if we knew he struggled to keep certain elements of his personality under control.

I believe you CAN have culinary mastery without fireworks in the kitchen, but of course he wouldn’t be half as much fun to watch and it’s as much about that as it is his cooking (at least in his television career). And he is gloriously unrepentant, which, I guess, we also like.

The cooking segment of the show consisted of Gordon showing Larry how to deal with his schmear, and, no, I’m not talking about what happens in an awkward moment in a doctor’s office. I’m talking about what Larry does to his bagel. AND it just goes to show that Gordon CAN teach in a calm and kind way, even if he did say something rather awful about Larry.

Larry showed Gordon his normal method. He put a tiny amount of cream cheese on an (untoasted) bagel with a little red onion and one slice of smoked salmon. Gordon was appalled that he was so stingy with the cream cheese. Larry tried to explain that's why he was thin. But think about it... Larry is probably 109 years old and they say those calorie restrictive diets can make you live a really long time…not that it would be worth it.

Anyway, Gordon said to Larry, “You’re as tight as a camel’s bottom in a desert storm.” I’m not sure if Larry understood him or even heard him, but it was priceless.

Gordon showed him how to do the proper schmear. And in just this little tiny demonstration, he showed his virtuosity. He spread the cream cheese with the BACK of the spoon (much more effective than the way Larry did it.) He put on just a little tomato, no onions - "bad for the breath". He sprinkled over a bit of DRAINED capers, and then rolled up THREE slices of smoked salmon and arranged them just beautifully on the bagel. It DID look glorious. BUT he didn't have to yell at Larry to accomplish that.

Gordon Ramsay without his temper would be like a volcano without the lava, I know that. I just wish he KNEW where his temper came from, because it seems so obvious to those of us watching from our armchairs.

Rachael Ray - The Philosopher Cook

Oh my, I do have to wonder what's happening to me. When I see Rachael Ray in non-food settings, I don't loathe her. Perhaps it was in contrast to Larry King last night, but she came off as extremely down-to-earth AND THOUGHTFUL. Wow! More about that in a moment.

Larry asked some really inane questions. The top one was, as he was touring her television talk show kitchen, "Do you always cook something new everyday?" "No, Larry, of course not, I just use the same 3 recipes and hope that people won't notice." What a moron. She was actually so held aghast by that question that she said, "Oh my gravy, yes." Naturally, he had never heard THAT expression before.

But in retrospect, maybe it wasn't such a dumb question after all. What I hate most about RR's cooking is that it's all much of a muchness - with burgers in many different horrible guises, topping the list. But Larry didn't know that about her, so from him it was a really stupid question.

She went on to talk about what a great life she has, and how she can do her 3 favorite things: chat, cook and travel.

As they go to a break, Larry puts up a question for his audience. Get a load of this - "What is EVOO?" I'm sure he's the only one that doesn't know the answer.

What WAS slightly shocking however, was Rachael's answer. When asked, "What is EXTRA virgin olive oil?", she said - really quickly, as if trying to brush right by it - "It hasn't been filtered."

Now here is the person who is responsible for adding EVOO to the dictionary, for Pete's sake, and she doesn't actually know what it is. EXTRA virgin olive oil comes from the first cold pressing of the olives and, as an aside, is less than 1% acid. The lower the acidity, the higher quality the olive oil. The acidity of olive oil is labelled everywhere but the United States. Look at your U.S purchased olive oil, there's no acidity number anywhere on the label. The next time you're in Spain, Italy or Greece, you will see the acidity level prominently displayed on the jar or can.

AND, notwithstanding RR's explanation, extra virgin olive oil CAN be filtered OR unfiltered. This is very disheartening to me...that she inspires legions of fans to "cook", but that she doesn't know the basic facts about "EVOO". I'm not saying Larry would have understood the answer, but still...

Despite that idiotic question AND answer, here's where the philosophy part comes in. Larry asked how RR felt about all the tabloid reports of her marriage falling apart. She claims she's not at all bothered by them. Here's why:

"My grandfather had a great rule. You have two choices in life. You can either laugh or you can cry. You gotta really choose what you cry about. To waste your time (worrying about the tabloids) is just silly."

I hate to say it, but that really resonated with me. So many people bellyache about their lot in life. They complain about EVERYTHING. I think RR is right when she says you have to pick your battles. You have to choose what to get upset about, because, otherwise, you're dissipating all your energy for stuff that just isn't important.

I guess it's kinda hard to disagree with her about that. From many reports, she does live her life like that. She IS an awful cook, but I don't think that makes her an awful person. Am I actually softening on Rachael Ray? Does that make ME an awful person? But I do think she should read up on her cooking facts, especially on a product that actually has her name on it.

Larry King, The Puritan, Interviews Paula Deen, The Profligate

Or that's how it seemed to me anyway. Larry King came off like such a stiff in his interview with Paula Deen. He also seem unmoved by her southern charm and anxious to move on during every, admittedly, slightly long-winded story.

I guess she was on to promote her book It Ain't All About the Cookin', so it wasn’t a surprise that the man who exploited Anna Nicole Smith's death for what seemed like 175 weeks in a row, would be interested in only the dirt.

Her long answers did not suit Larry's sound-bite style one bit. He kept cutting her off and it was funny, because she didn’t seem to notice. I love Paula, but I did want to nudge her, just a little, to get on with it.

She did look lovely with a magnificent head of hair, though. One question was about that. She said she was "one of God's blondes" and that she uses the shampoo in a purple bottle. That’s our down-to-earth Paula.

When her first husband moved them to Savannah, she didn't get out of bed for 2 months. She was just getting to the pinnacle of her tale....how the Serenity Prayer suddenly occurred to her and gave her the strength to go on...and off he dashes to a break.

The minute they came back, the interrogation starts again: "You were a smoker?" She pauses, looks really sheepish and says, I still am. He asks her how much she smokes. She whispers a pack and a half. He says doesn't it affect the taste of food. She says, I don't think so. He says, WELL YOU DON’T KNOW!!! Goodness! Larry, let the lady alone! Then she says, "If food tasted any better, I'd be 500 pounds". Good one, Paula.

He rushes her through the story of her cooking career, because he's anxious to start badgering her about her affair with a married man. He kept asking for more and more details.

Larry was making like a frickin' nun. "Did you feel for his wife?", he must have asked in 30 different ways. I guess Larry’s perspective is that it's better to have been married 15 separate times than to fool around with more than one person at a time. Who knew Larry was such a Puritan? Not that I disagree with him about this or the smoking, but he didn't have to harass our poor Paula.

How did it end, he just had to know. Paula paused and said softly,“I met my husband,” almost as one would utter a long repeated prayer. Then, as she’s telling the story of her Bag Lady business, he had to bring it back to the affair. He just couldn’t let it go. “You told you husband?” he asked as he grilled her in his gravelly voice. Thank goodness, she had told him or there would have been one big ruckus on the farm that night.

But still more questions from Larry:
Was it hard to break off?
Did you feel bad for his wife?

There were a few light moments. Someone asked her if there was a dish of hers that had became unexpectedly popular. “Ho cakes, and it's not the girl on the corner, I'll tell you that, Larry”... I’m not sure he got it. I half expected him to start questioning her about being a madam with a prostitution ring. (She DOES kind of look the part. And now that we know she smokes so much, I guess she capable of such immorality…according to Larry, anyway.)

There was a nice story about how she became involved with the Food Network. She met someone who introduced her to Gordon Elliott, who loved her and suggested her for a show. Of course, that story got hurried through by Larry, because she wasn’t sleeping with Gordon (not that she said anyway.) And it didn’t outrage his moral sensibilities.

Asked about her relationship with the Smithfield company, she kept a smile plastered on her face, while Larry listed the complaints of a union trying to organize. He asked her repeatedly, “So you WOULD meet with the union?” She kept saying, yes. She’s not a politician, for goodness sake, and it just seemed like he was bullying her. Ask her once…let her answer and move on. Or devote an entire show to it and get all the facts out.

Then one more dig about her cancer sticks: To Bobby, her son, “Does it bother you that she smokes?” YES. Ok, duh, thanks Larry.

She is a cooking host, for goodness sake. AND she is a fabulous entertainer with a huge audience and I guess Larry was just trying to get himself a piece of that pie.