@AnnaB I envy you. My wife has made a lot of her recipes over the years, I couldn't stand the aspics. Although, thankfully now, when she makes something I don't want to try, I just tell her "You know I don't eat carbs" and that gets me out of taste testing . . . But for Julia, I would have thrown my diet out the window and let that woman cook anything she wanted for me and delightfully cleaned my plate.
@PhysAssist Agreed. That was what I could find in a quick search - SNL/NBC has things pretty locked down. Even Aykroyd will tell you those were done with love. Julia was amazing.
@MsELizardBeth I concur, excellent follow. The post its drive some people crazy, but I find them entertaining. I was able to see his stage show and it was terrific.
@Wimateeka Alton's live show is a good way to spend an evening, if it comes anywhere near you. Not so much food specific, but enough so, and very entertaining.
@baqui63@Wimateeka The trouble with the "science" answer is that doesn't do Good Eats justice (though that is what I chose). It's not just about the science of cooking, but the culture, the art, the social implications, the origins, etc. It's holistic and as much about the humanities--and certainly about the humanity--of food and its consumption as it is about the science.
@cinoclav You are the human!! Great choices, I couldn't find many because I'm at work [and too many things come up NSFW], but theres this: , and this: , then this: , and this: . Nuff for now...?
I like shows where I actually learn whilst enjoying the food porn, from classy, clever hosts that obviously luxuriate in their cooking. Jacques Pepin + Julia Child, Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Martin Yan and Nigella Lawson are favorites that immediately spring to mind.
I've not dug deep enough into the net yet to say i've reaaaally searched thorpughly, but I've been trying to find the galloping chefs and great chefs series in full. I've heard raves over the years.
Kerr's most famous line on the show might have been his response to someone's criticism of his cooking: "Madam, you could go outside and get run over by a bus and just think what you would have missed!"
Can someone explain to me why there are three separate and distinct but totally the same versions of ATK? Test Kitchen, Cook's Country and Cook's Illustrated are all the exact same thing. I'll bet their subscriptions would double if they didn't try to segregate customers into three fiefdoms.
For the life of me, I don't get cooking competition shows. I mean, I get the show, but I don't get why anybody would watch any of them, unless they were strapped to a hospital bed and the remote control had fallen on the floor and all of the nurses were on smoke break.
You don't learn how to make anything, you don't learn behind the scenes stuff about how kitchens work, and you can't actually taste the food so you have to take some knuckleheads word that one of them taste better than the other. I tried watching that next best great restaurant show, that had the guy from chipotles as a judge. It took me about two shows to realize that all of the judges were insisting that the contestants did stuff in their restaurants that the judges never practiced themselves. Their judgments on what made a successful restaurant were totally arbitrary. But worst of all is that they steal their production cues from the whole reality genre, where every two minute segment starts with 30 seconds of rehash from before the last commercial, 60 seconds of new footage, and then 30 seconds of preview of what you'll see after the next commercial, which gets rerun again two minutes later. You pretty much have to have a lobotomy watch television these days.
@saodell High five chest bump bro fist! I fully agree. Reality programming is lazy and stupid 97% of the time, cookery included. (Though there is plenty of excellent television in the non-reality realm of filmage, so lobotomy not totally necessary, promise.)
@goldenthorn Ditto and Ditto When I come home and my wife is watching so-called "reality TV", I always [have to] ask, wouldn;t it be better to get up and actually HAVE a life, rather than watch a faked version of some other idiots idea of life? My new favorite bumper sticker:
@saodell@goldenthorn@PhysAssist I like some of them a lot and here's why: I love food and I love cooking. When I watch something like Top Chef I think they do a great job of avoiding the typical pitfalls of bullshit reality shows and manufactured drama, the chefs still usually have strong personalities but at the end of the day it's all about the food. I like seeing what accomplished and well-trained chefs can create within various boundaries and how they work when they get pushed outside of their comfort zones. The entire art and process of cooking is fascinating to me and I love seeing the final product even if I don't get a taste. All of that said, I tried to watch "Master Chef" which is network TV's answer to Top Chef and I was annoyed when I noticed immediately that the manufactured drama factor was way higher and even though I respect the judges on the show they were being overly obnoxious.
@JonT I have to agree with you, and it really is the obviously manufactured conflicts that annoy me most, followed closely by the obvious ploys to pull at heart strings ...
@PhysAssist it's the production quality that really gets me. Dumb people can be funny. (The Young Ones, for starters.) I tried watching the Jamie Oliver public school cafeteria show. Good message, I thought. But a 60 minute show had maybe, maybe 9 minutes of unique footage.
Any Gordon Ramsay UK produced show, original Kitchen Nightmares and The F word. Not sure if it counts, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown is an incredible show.
@travo Yes! "I do not appear in the videos. That's right, the food is the star." Even so, Chef John is a real treat to listen to and his food is frequently surprising as well as delicious.
@goldenthorn already mentioned Nigella Lawson, but I think she deserves her own entry. She does indeed do a lot of what Alton Brown does (in terms of discussing food and cooking more broadly and intelligently) but in that lovely British voice of hers, which--fuck the food--is delicious in itself. I "watch" her mostly on NPR and haven't actually seen her much on TV (actually probably only seen her in YouTube videos).
I really miss Julia Child.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnc9_the-french-chef_fun
(can't find a way to embed it)
@Pavlov she was amazing. I got a chance to meet her once, years ago when I was in culinary school. She was gracious and lovely.
@Pavlov
@AnnaB I envy you. My wife has made a lot of her recipes over the years, I couldn't stand the aspics. Although, thankfully now, when she makes something I don't want to try, I just tell her "You know I don't eat carbs" and that gets me out of taste testing . . . But for Julia, I would have thrown my diet out the window and let that woman cook anything she wanted for me and delightfully cleaned my plate.
@Pavlov However, the best were the SNL parodies of JC where she amputated her fingers or hand and just kept cooking despite the arterial pumping...
@PhysAssist Agreed. That was what I could find in a quick search - SNL/NBC has things pretty locked down. Even Aykroyd will tell you those were done with love. Julia was amazing.
@Pavlov And in an interview late in life, she said those skits were pretty funny. Though in the movie Julie and Julia, she didn't seem to gracious.
Good Eats.
@Wimateeka do you follow Alton Brown on twitter? It is the best feed I follow.
@Wimateeka rumors are good eats might be coming back...
@MsELizardBeth I concur, excellent follow. The post its drive some people crazy, but I find them entertaining. I was able to see his stage show and it was terrific.
@Wimateeka Alton Brown Yassss!
@Wimateeka Alton's live show is a good way to spend an evening, if it comes anywhere near you. Not so much food specific, but enough so, and very entertaining.
@djslack Heartily agree, got to see it last year as a birthday gift. Good Fun, Good Eats.
@Wimateeka Yep. We all know that the "science answer" in the poll is code for Good Eats.
@Wimateeka Loved it, and the books are/were good too!
@baqui63 @Wimateeka The trouble with the "science" answer is that doesn't do Good Eats justice (though that is what I chose). It's not just about the science of cooking, but the culture, the art, the social implications, the origins, etc. It's holistic and as much about the humanities--and certainly about the humanity--of food and its consumption as it is about the science.
@joelmw very true. so much more than just a cooking show.
youtube channels. Brothers Green Eats is great
The ones with Giada. Who cares what she's cooking.
@Headly Some great GIFs of her online too!
@PhysAssist @Headly Like these? :)
@cinoclav You are the human!! Great choices, I couldn't find many because I'm at work [and too many things come up NSFW], but theres this:
, and this: 
, then this: 
, and this: 
. Nuff for now...?
@PhysAssist Nope, never enough of my Giada:
, and 
, 
, 
@Headly She has a HUGE head.
The ones I don't have to watch.
What. No Swedish chef Muppet choice?
@MsELizardBeth
@MsELizardBeth
@MsELizardBeth Sorry for the double post. It was beer-thirty many hours ago and I'm still conscious.
Two Swedish Chefs are better than no Swedish Chefs. And here's another:
I love Top Chef, but Master Chef Junior is my favorite.
The original (subtitled, ideally) Iron Chef.
In the educational vein, Saint Julia Child.
s/s are:/ is Good Eats. Period/
Maangchi taught me that if you can't have the cabbage you love, love the cabbage you can get.
Lidia Bastianich makes the kind of Italian food I grew up with. Love that show.
John Besh. A genuinely nice man. John Folse comes off as a bit too teachy, but his cooking is solid Bayou Cajun.
Most entertaining is Justin Wilson. I ga-ron-tee! Aiiieee!
All-time fav is Tony Bourdain. And that one episode of No Reservations where he gets hammered. Oh, wait. That's all of them. ;-)
Kinda a Cutthroat Kitchen fan myself. Alton Brown is a fun host, and the sabotages are straight out Good Eats, only evil.
@bluejester I kind of don't. Alton is good at it but its not really 'him'. He as much as said so in tweets some time ago.
I like shows where I actually learn whilst enjoying the food porn, from classy, clever hosts that obviously luxuriate in their cooking. Jacques Pepin + Julia Child, Ina Garten, Alton Brown, Martin Yan and Nigella Lawson are favorites that immediately spring to mind.
I've not dug deep enough into the net yet to say i've reaaaally searched thorpughly, but I've been trying to find the galloping chefs and great chefs series in full. I've heard raves over the years.
@goldenthorn The Great Chefs series are terrific. I used to watch them all faithfully. I even have a few of the companion cookbooks.
Chef Tell for ze win! I see you!
Bitchin' Kitchen is amazing:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BitchinKitchenOnline
On Cooking Channel.
Alton Brown "Good Eats" FTW!
I'm not just saying that because both Meh.com and "Good Eats" use sock puppets.
Anything with alton brown. (I know good eats came up a lot, but what about cutthroat kitchen? Pretty damn entertaining if you ask me)
I almost forgot - here's a blast from the past . . .
The Galloping Gourmet -
81 and still going strong - http://www.grahamkerr.com/
Kerr's most famous line on the show might have been his response to someone's criticism of his cooking: "Madam, you could go outside and get run over by a bus and just think what you would have missed!"
Cooking shows? Where's the 'meh' button for those?
Best cooking show on TV: Hannibal
@angus this is disturbingly true, the 'food' looks amazing on that show.
@angus Brains!!!!, and liver with a nice Chianti, sniffffff.
Can someone explain to me why there are three separate and distinct but totally the same versions of ATK? Test Kitchen, Cook's Country and Cook's Illustrated are all the exact same thing. I'll bet their subscriptions would double if they didn't try to segregate customers into three fiefdoms.
@saodell Don't know but they are good shows. We have some of the recipe books and are consistently happy with the results we get.
For the life of me, I don't get cooking competition shows. I mean, I get the show, but I don't get why anybody would watch any of them, unless they were strapped to a hospital bed and the remote control had fallen on the floor and all of the nurses were on smoke break.
You don't learn how to make anything, you don't learn behind the scenes stuff about how kitchens work, and you can't actually taste the food so you have to take some knuckleheads word that one of them taste better than the other.
I tried watching that next best great restaurant show, that had the guy from chipotles as a judge. It took me about two shows to realize that all of the judges were insisting that the contestants did stuff in their restaurants that the judges never practiced themselves. Their judgments on what made a successful restaurant were totally arbitrary.
But worst of all is that they steal their production cues from the whole reality genre, where every two minute segment starts with 30 seconds of rehash from before the last commercial, 60 seconds of new footage, and then 30 seconds of preview of what you'll see after the next commercial, which gets rerun again two minutes later.
You pretty much have to have a lobotomy watch television these days.
@saodell High five chest bump bro fist! I fully agree. Reality programming is lazy and stupid 97% of the time, cookery included. (Though there is plenty of excellent television in the non-reality realm of filmage, so lobotomy not totally necessary, promise.)
@goldenthorn Ditto and Ditto When I come home and my wife is watching so-called "reality TV", I always [have to] ask, wouldn;t it be better to get up and actually HAVE a life, rather than watch a faked version of some other idiots idea of life? My new favorite bumper sticker:
@saodell @goldenthorn @PhysAssist I like some of them a lot and here's why: I love food and I love cooking. When I watch something like Top Chef I think they do a great job of avoiding the typical pitfalls of bullshit reality shows and manufactured drama, the chefs still usually have strong personalities but at the end of the day it's all about the food. I like seeing what accomplished and well-trained chefs can create within various boundaries and how they work when they get pushed outside of their comfort zones. The entire art and process of cooking is fascinating to me and I love seeing the final product even if I don't get a taste. All of that said, I tried to watch "Master Chef" which is network TV's answer to Top Chef and I was annoyed when I noticed immediately that the manufactured drama factor was way higher and even though I respect the judges on the show they were being overly obnoxious.
@JonT I have to agree with you, and it really is the obviously manufactured conflicts that annoy me most, followed closely by the obvious ploys to pull at heart strings ...
@PhysAssist
it's the production quality that really gets me. Dumb people can be funny. (The Young Ones, for starters.)
I tried watching the Jamie Oliver public school cafeteria show. Good message, I thought. But a 60 minute show had maybe, maybe 9 minutes of unique footage.
Yan Can Cook is da best.
Best cooking show.
@StanLube yessssssssssssssssssssssssss
Knife Fight -
Any Gordon Ramsay UK produced show, original Kitchen Nightmares and The F word.
Not sure if it counts, Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown is an incredible show.
Not a show that's on television, I quite enjoy Food Wishes.
Chef John is a boss.
"And as always, enjoy!"
https://www.youtube.com/user/foodwishes
@travo Yes! "I do not appear in the videos. That's right, the food is the star."
Even so, Chef John is a real treat to listen to and his food is frequently surprising as well as delicious.
@goldenthorn already mentioned Nigella Lawson, but I think she deserves her own entry. She does indeed do a lot of what Alton Brown does (in terms of discussing food and cooking more broadly and intelligently) but in that lovely British voice of hers, which--fuck the food--is delicious in itself. I "watch" her mostly on NPR and haven't actually seen her much on TV (actually probably only seen her in YouTube videos).
Nigella is a hotty too, not just that cool Brit accent:
, 
, 
, 
, 
I just now learned that Art Ginsburg (aka Mr. Food) died. Oh, it's so sad.
Pretty sure she's talking about food...
@heli0s I don't care what she's saying, just as long as she keeps saying it.