Food Network cancels Emeril Live

[3894]

Originally Posted by katiesue

Morri you should check out this show Americas Test Kitchen. My Aunt was telling me about it. It's on PBS. They make recommendations on just about everything from equipment to produce.

America's Test Kitchen aka Cooks Magazine and Cooks Country Magazine absolutely, positively rules. They don't accept advertising so their recommendations are on the level.

[CoasterMatt]

Rachael Ray's voice is about as pleasant as the sound of a steel rake being dragged across a chalkboard.

[Alex]

I don't watch any of the shows on Food Network to learn how to make dishes. I just try to take away techniques and pretty much any of the cooking oriented shows provide those in some way.

The increasingly pervasive non-cooking shows are generally useless to me. I've learned the occasional thing from Rachel Ray so I am ok with her. I don't watch daytime TV so I don't end up feeling burned out with her. Emeril is annoying but at least he cooks on his show instead of visiting restaurants to be told "sorry, secret recipe" or running video press releases for processed food manufacturers.

[3894]

I was watching French TV last night and thought of this thread.

There is a cooking show with two hosts who take on-camera cooking lessons with a different chef each episode. Usually, they make two dishes (that are realistic for the home cook) in the half hour. The cooking lessons take place on the chef's home turf. That way, you also get a glimpse into a different famous kitchen each week, as well as the front of the house.

The format could work really well in this country, too.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

Emeril is annoying but at least he cooks on his show instead of visiting restaurants to be told "sorry, secret recipe" or running video press releases for processed food manufacturers.

Yes! I **HATE** Unwrapped!!! It's just a poorly disguised commercial for food products.

"Here's a press person to tell us about this taaaasty treat. Now here are some big machines that do all the work for us so you can't really see what's going on. They add flour, sugar, and the seeeecret ingredient, and process it all where you can't see a damn thing. Now here's a machine that packages the product. We're going to sit on this view the longest because it's the only time anything interesting happens and it shows the company logo repeatedly. Now here's Mark Summers pretending to like all the crap we just talked about."

That, in a nutshell, is Unwrapped.

However, there are a few semi-non-cooking shows that are very good. Dinner Impossible, while it involves cooking, doesn't focus on the food but rather the process of meal prep. That can be fun. I also liked the one where Alton Brown traveled the country on his motorcycle and at at roadside stands.

I am not terribly fond of the American version of Iron Chef. I miss the Japanese quirkiness.

[Alex]

A format like that seems to be somewhat common on local PBS type cooking shows. I know there's one here in the Bay Area that always seems to be cooking in some area top restaurant.

But I can't give details. Being that it is PBS, I immediately fall asleep out of ingrained habit.

[3894]

Originally Posted by Alex

Being that it is PBS, I immediately fall asleep out of ingrained habit.

Who needs Lunesta when you've got PBS, eh? The hosts on the French cooking show don't fawn - this may be a critical difference.

[Alex]

We were travelling somewhere on a road trip a couple years ago and actually came across a PBS station showing The Lawrence Welk Show. I had to wonder if living a stereotype so fully burns.