Kitchen

[Melzie]

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@Desert Lily wrote:

A plethora of cooking programs came after Julia Child & Top Chef. There's even a network for cooking & food. I used to watch several of them, but now, not so much.

I enjoy watching an occasional program that demonstrates a complex meal or dessert. I can use the ideas for special days. But, my everyday cooking is simplified. Even when I was a young single working mom, I didn't have time for extremely elaborate meals. I made a protein, veggies, salad, & a grain, and sometimes dessert.

Programs like Create's America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Country demonstrate recipes with so many steps. Who has the time or inkling for that?! Not working moms & not me. They're not practical. I watched one show where it took them 2 whole days to make iced coffee.

And those tests. Maybe some people like a sweeter sauce or a lighter iron skillet. I once took the test advice & bought the winning bagged popcorn. What I got was a mouthful of hulls, not flavor. It's opinion and what individuals need or like. I now take those "tests" with a grain of salt.

I used to use my mom's Settlement cookbook. It gave me directions, substitutes, & was realistic.

And the spices. All these cooking programs use a variety of the same spices in each item. It seems to me that using all of those spices in all of the food makes all the food taste the same - like the spices. I want my squash to taste like squash, not like a spice mixture. I want my marinara sauce to have the appropriate spices, but I don't need them in every single thing I eat. IMO, the use of spices in programs is over the top & boring.

Many of the cooking programs don't even tell the viewer the amounts of the ingredients they're using. They tell the viewer to check a website for that.

I used to come home after school as a kid & watch Julia Child. She explained the process, the ingredients, & downfalls to watch for. I learned from her & was engaged in the program. I've learned from Martha Stewart, too.

On occasion, I still watch programs like Ciao Italia, A Chef's Life, & Lidia because I can actually learn something or use the info. I also sometimes watch Mr. Food bc he has recipes that can match real lifestyle.

I won't even go into some of the silly food game shows. And what about healthy eating??

I understand that programs & interests recycle. I've moved on from most of the cooking programs.

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I agree with a lot of what you say.  I like to cook and used to enjoy the cooking shows that showed you step by step what to do and any pitfalls along the way. They have, for the most part, been replaced by contests and I hate those shows, especially the ones with outrageous ingredients some of which you've never even heard of.  There are only a handful of the good shows left.  It also bugs me that a lot of the shows now have a cast of characters such as friends or relatives who stop by to chat and/or eat what has been cooked and everyone is phoney laughing around the table. 

I also found that a lot of the cooking shows have become 1/4 cooking and 3/4 travelogues.  I really don't care to look at grape vines in Italy or California or watch someone pull a carrot out of the ground or watch someone reel in a fish.  If it's a cooking show then I want to see cooking, techniques, helpful hints, different cooking styles, etc.  

Thanks for letting me vent.    

[Icegoddess]

I do not like to cook.  I used to enjoy cooking desserts, but I don't do much of that anymore either.  The worst part for me is gathering all the ingredients and the prep work.  I also used to live kinda vicariously through the cooking shows, and if I could just cook it the way they did on the cooking shows with all the stuff there and you just add the ingredients to the dish, I'd be all in.  I'm also a very messy cook and I hve very little counter space, so I'm often washing dishes as I cook to get them out of the way.  

Over the years, the shows changed from how-to to competitions and I did watch some of those with the thought of getting ideas, but nothing ever stuck, so I quit watching them.  Now, I rarely even check to see what's on The Food Network.  

[LavernLuvsShoes]

Call me old-fashioned, but I long for the days when Julia, Graham Kerr, and Emeril actually demonstrated quick and easy ways to cook delicious "edible" meals. 

Stopped watching the Food Network when all of the "Competition" programming started.

Oh, and while most of their dishes were not really "simple," per se, I was hooked on Iron Chef for a long time.

Hubby would let out a loud GROAN every time he saw me watching it (LOL)