Food cooking programs on t.v.

C

Camper6

Well-known Member
Location
Northwestern Ontario Canada
These cooking programs are not very practical.

Huge kitchens. All the latest equipment. Unlimited funds for I exotic ingredients. Real vanilla beans.

Half the stuff they cook or bake can't be duplicated in the home kitchen .

I love watching Anna Olsen baking but she would never make it in my tiny kitchen and limited equipment.

Pie crust by hand instead of the latest mixer and dough hook or whatever.

And my stuff has a strange way of hiding. I keep losing a spatula. So I went out and bought a new one. Of course the old one shows up after hiding for a week.

Another one today. Two barbecues going and a brick oven. Give me a break.
 

I agree. My husband has become addicted to folks that have cooking channels on You Tube. Many are more "real" and geared toward real people who cannot afford a lot of money on exotic ingredients..though I am sure there are some of those too. What is great is that most have websites where you can get the recipes in print.
 
IMO Jacques Pépin is the best and most practical of the television chefs.

I also enjoyed Rachel Allen,[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, adobe-helvetica, Arial Narrow]Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jennifer Paterson and[/FONT] Ina Garten.
 

Have you seen Master Chef Junior (with kids)? I kind of enjoy it, but yes, they have the best equipment and finest exotic ingredients. Same with The Chew and most of the cooking shows I've seen.

btw has anyone noticed how Rachel Ray dumps HUGE amounts of olive oil (EVOO) and salt on everything?
 
I've been watching Master Chefs too. These kids are amazing, the creative dishes they come up with.
I went to Culinary school, but these kids are starting so young, it's great!
 
Camper6 said:
These cooking programs are not very practical.

Huge kitchens. All the latest equipment. Unlimited funds for I exotic ingredients. Real vanilla beans.

Half the stuff they cook or bake can't be duplicated in the home kitchen .

I love watching Anna Olsen baking but she would never make it in my tiny kitchen and limited equipment.

Pie crust by hand instead of the latest mixer and dough hook or whatever.

And my stuff has a strange way of hiding. I keep losing a spatula. So I went out and bought a new one. Of course the old one shows up after hiding for a week.

Another one today. Two barbecues going and a brick oven. Give me a break.
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LOL....Same thing with some of these home dyi shows. Sure if I had a Lathe, a bandsaw, a router, a jigsaw, planner, all of the latest tools from Home Depot and a crew of 10, I to could renovate my entire house in a weekend.
 
I watch some of the shows and just love how some say these dishes can be prepared in less than a half hour. Of course they can if you have all the ingredients prepped and put in cute little glass dishes and someone to clean up afterwards.
 
When we had broadcast TV (three years ago now), I thoroughly enjoyed Chopped
I think it was on The Food channel
Not sure if it's even still aired
good.....great show
 
Most of the time my TV is on, I'm watching PBS' Create. Off the top of my head, there are two cooking shows on there that are fun to watch but no way will I ever have the ingredients to replicate them. One is Annabel Langbein, a New Zealand cook who lives in the middle of an enormous productive garden. She cooks in a tiny cabin-size kitchen and then feeds a herd of people. The other is New Scandinavian Cooking. No way I'm going to pull a fish out of the ice and cook it outdoors with local ingredients I've never seen before.

The shows I enjoy most are those that teach technique. I love to watch Martha Bakes because she's so good at demonstrating technique. So far she hasn't used ingredients or utensils/appliances I don't have in my baking pantry.

I've been watching TV cooking since Julia Child's beginning days on PBS. I owned her Mastering the Art of French Cooking and sometimes recipes like puff pastry would stymie me until she made them. She made simplifying recipes into an art form.
 
yes i noticed how she loads down everything with salt and olive oil--then she throws some salt over her shoulder---why cant she lay that green cup down she is always holding in her hand
 
I would rather go to the library and get a cookbook with a picture of the finished dish. I can read rather than listen to all the distracting small talk on the shows.

I do like Jamie Oliver's 5 Ingredients book.
 
James said:
LOL....Same thing with some of these home dyi shows. Sure if I had a Lathe, a bandsaw, a router, a jigsaw, planner, all of the latest tools from Home Depot and a crew of 10, I to could renovate my entire house in a weekend.
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I had all that stuff. But I didn't have a crew of 10. I had all kinds of tools and I never needed a serviceman except for electrical work. I live in an apartment now and still fix stuff on my own when I can. But the landlord doesn't like it for insurance purposes. They have sloppy workers in my opinion. I'm never happy with the job they do. They take as many shortcuts as they can.
 
Aunt Bea said:
IMO Jacques Pépin is the best and most practical of the television chefs.

I also enjoyed Rachel Allen,Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jennifer Paterson and Ina Garten.
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You've just listed all my favourites...but I must add Anna Olsen too... not her cake and pastry shows but her every day meals shows.. I agree with you Camper, tho'.. I would struggle to make a lot of what she cooks in her kitchen..all the freshest of ingredients, going out to the farm to collect just harvested apples, and greens and taking them back to the kitchen to serve up an hour later, then to the wine merchant for a recently bottled dinner wine.. nope.. ...but I love to watch her at work, regardless, because she's a master at her craft

I like to watch Ina Garten, and the 2 fat ladies..but my I don't try and recreate any of their recipes because they are sooo high in fat and butter.. same with the Pioneer woman, loads of Fat and sugar...in everything.. but again I love to watch I'm a big fan of Delia Smith...she's a little old fashioned now but her recipes are straight forward and down to earth, and not loaded with fat and sugar as much as the others..

Another great show is River Cottage with Hugh fearnely -whittingstall https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes.

If you live on a farm or have a small holding and grow most of your own food, and even shoot your own game, this is a great show, he grows just about everything on his own farm and cooks in his own kitchen...
 
Camper6 said:
Have you ever watched Guy Fieri eating those huge burgers or whatever.

He's got a mouth like a crocodile.

I like my portions a lot smaller. I don't like stuff dripping all over the place.
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Diners, Drive Ins and Dives? Love that show! He should be as big as an elephant!
 
"The Little Paris Kitchen" is the smallest I've ever seen. It belongs to Rachel Khoo, a British lady who had some TV shows cooking in this kitchen, beautiful food.

In the following video, Laura Calder, a wonderful Canadian cook gives us a tour of Rachel's little Paris kitchen.

 
I became disillusioned with The Food Channel several years ago. I still like Ina and Alton, but have no cable anymore. The rest of it is junk. There's little to no instruction anymore, everything is just competitions, and stupid ones at that. Iron Chef was silly/entertaining as a competition but more than one, is too much.

Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay I'm sure are wonderful chefs but I'm sick and tired of them. As with "Little Big Head"- Giada DeLaurentis. I can't take another minute of Rachel Ray. And that horror of all horrors; Sandra Lee, ugh.

Maybe I'm not being fair, after all it's over two years since I've watched it.

I remember one year, it was either just before Thanksgiving or maybe Christmas, they had an almost all-day cooking show with the boat load of the most popular cooks all together, cooking and chopping and having fun in a huge kitchen. It was fun, except for Giada.

She talked incessantly, would not shut up for a moment, Alton rolling his eyes at times until finally she cut her finger. That was sad, but after they bandaged it she had to leave. Talk about mixed emotions!

Sandra Lee (Semi Homemade) was the worst. Part home made and part store bought, was her shtick. I recall how she wanted to pipe whipped cream around the edge of a pie or something, so she bought Cool Whip, cut off a corner of a plastic baggie, filled it with cool Whip and squeezed it out of the cut off corner and slopped it around the pie!

Why didn't she just buy a can of Reddi Whip and do the same thing? At least it would have been real cream.

Another time, she made spaghetti sauce out of canned tomato soup :hororr:.

But the day she cut up a store bought cake and frosted/decorated it to be the Star of David, I almost fell down.

Is she still on The Food Network, does anyone know?
 
James said:
LOL....Same thing with some of these home dyi shows. Sure if I had a Lathe, a bandsaw, a router, a jigsaw, planner, all of the latest tools from Home Depot and a crew of 10, I to could renovate my entire house in a weekend.
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I watch This Old House program.

They were making a bench for a mud room to hold containers.

Huge table saw. Routers with templates. MDF sanded down and primed and painted by a professional.

Most people would just put the containers to hold the boots in the room and supply a chair.

I like the program but unless you have a workshop with a dust collector system, just forget it.
 
RadishRose said:
I became disillusioned with The Food Channel several years ago. I still like Ina and Alton, but have no cable anymore. The rest of it is junk. There's little to no instruction anymore, everything is just competitions, and stupid ones at that. Iron Chef was silly/entertaining as a competition but more than one, is too much.

Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay I'm sure are wonderful chefs but I'm sick and tired of them. As with "Little Big Head"- Giada DeLaurentis. I can't take another minute of Rachel Ray. And that horror of all horrors; Sandra Lee, ugh.

Maybe I'm not being fair, after all it's over two years since I've watched it.

I remember one year, it was either just before Thanksgiving or maybe Christmas, they had an almost all-day cooking show with the boat load of the most popular cooks all together, cooking and chopping and having fun in a huge kitchen. It was fun, except for Giada.

She talked incessantly, would not shut up for a moment, Alton rolling his eyes at times until finally she cut her finger. That was sad, but after they bandaged it she had to leave. Talk about mixed emotions!

Sandra Lee (Semi Homemade) was the worst. Part home made and part store bought, was her shtick. I recall how she wanted to pipe whipped cream around the edge of a pie or something, so she bought Cool Whip, cut off a corner of a plastic baggie, filled it with cool Whip and squeezed it out of the cut off corner and slopped it around the pie!

Why didn't she just buy a can of Reddi Whip and do the same thing? At least it would have been real cream.

Another time, she made spaghetti sauce out of canned tomato soup :hororr:.

But the day she cut up a store bought cake and frosted/decorated it to be the Star of David, I almost fell down.

Is she still on The Food Network, does anyone know?
Click to expand...

Giada is from a family of film magnates. De Laurentis. Her father.

She's easy on the eyes for guys, but she shouldnt spend too much time over a hot stove.
 
Aunt Bea said:
IMO Jacques Pépin is the best and most practical of the television chefs.
.
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Thanks, Bea. The other day I was waiting in line at a small, locally owned butcher shop, and was talking with the lady behind me. She mentioned that chef, as someone I should check into for things I mentioned I wanted to learn. I did not have any way to write down the name, and forgot it. THAT was it. LOL
 
For those of us who do not have cable any more, there are many cooks and chefs who have YouTube channels. Many are more "down home" cooks for real people. I watch Shotgun Red, Noreen's Kitchen and the BBQ Pit Boys (or something like that). I think Pioneer Mom has a channel as well. What I like about Shotgun Red is that he puts his reciles right in the description of each video.
 

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