What's Cookin' Volume 2

The Look: The set looks like someone's house but It is hard to tell if it is a real house or a convincing replica. It is French country design which is appropriate considering the host. Maybe it's Jacques' house. What do I know about it? I'm not a set designer. I'm just some dumb-ass Pollack in Chicago.

The Cast: Most of the time it's just Jacques but every once in a while he has an old chef buddy on the show and they poke fun at each other and tell inside jokes that they sometimes explain but not always. Somehow this makes the show more appealing.

Jacques has been around for something like a hundred years and has authored more books than Stephen King. That's serious clout. Also, he's French and (say what you will about the French) those fuckers can cook. They don't call the accepted rules for cooking "French Technique" for nothing.

What's Cookin': There's a lot of French influence in most of the recipes but Jacques has lived and worked in the US for a long time. He knows his audience so he makes recipes geared towards Americans. Also, he worked with Julia Child on books and TV shows and some of her tendency to thumb her nose at tradition in favor of convenience and tricks of the trade gained from years of cooking has rubbed off.

Though Julia's influence is apparent, he generally makes his dishes a bit healthier than she did. When he does put a big wad of butter in the pan he usually justifies it pretty well using the "all things in moderation" defense.

Problems With The Show: It's called "Fast Food My Way" and when Jacques cooks the dishes it does go pretty quick. A home cook needs to allow for a lot more prep time. When you work in a commercial kitchen for years, you get very fast at chopping, dicing and know how to multi-task in the kitchen without the wheels coming off the bus.

Also, less experienced cooks might get flustered by the fact that Jacques rarely measures anything. He (like many experienced cooks) does a lot of guestimating and uses measurements like "a handful" and "however many you like". At least he doesn't use the metric system. You can get written recipes on the show's website.

Why I Watch: He's a living legend of the culinary world. He won the James Beard lifetime achievement award in '05 for fuck's sake! Did YOU win a James Beard award recently? No, you didn't. So go get your knives and start chopping your mirepoix, rookie.

What's Cookin' Vol. 1

I know I go on about politics quite a bit but when I'm not watching McLaughlin or Tim Russert, you can usually find me watching cooking shows. I also used to cook in a 4 star restaurant. As such, I consider myself a bit of an expert and decided I would critique some of the best and worst of the lot. Here goes...



The Look: Everyday Food is a PBS show that got its start a couple years ago on a simple/commercial kitchen set with the cast wearing different brightly colored sweaters. The production quality got a lot better this past year which would indicate to me that once the show got some traction they started sinking more loot into it. Now they film on a set that looks more like somebody's fancy ass house.

The Cast: The show has 5 hosts that share the spotlight. They are Lucinda Scala Quinn, Margot Olshan, Sarah Carey, John Barricelli and last (but most certainly not least) Allie Lewis.


I guess you could say I've got kind of a thing for Allie. I think that they are putting a little too much make up on the ladies since they gussied up the show but other than that she is pretty easy on the eyes.

The cast all work for Martha Stewart's magazine of the same name so they actually know how to cook quite well.

What's Cooking: The cast takes turns making meals that most people can produce in a short amount of time or with the least amount of trouble and simple techniques for the home cook. They try to and do a good job of using influences from lots of different cuisines. I have seen everything from Indian food to Thai to Russian. All made to be very accessible to home cooks.

Problems With The Show: It's a Martha Stewart production which has a couple of set backs. Everything looks a little too perfect and has that Martha feel that turns some people off. Also, it means that there's a whole lot of measuring going on. More experienced cooks (myself included) don't like measuring things or timers and shit like that. We season to taste and cook it until it's done.

Why I watch: Although I don't take to all the measuring to well, I get some good ideas for recipes from the show. Also, pretty girls in Aprons are hot.