(no subject)

[spatch]

PHRASES THE FOOD NETWORK IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO USE

"The Ultimate"
"Chowhound"
"Smackdown"
"Challenge"

PROGRAMS THE FOOD NETWORK WILL NOW DEVELOP JUST TO SPITE ME

The Ultimate Chowhound Smackdown Challenge

Comments

[spatch]

The Lebanon episode was incredible. The entire No Reservations series is awesome, but that special was an amazing example of what happens when you go in to a place with cameras to get one special view, but end up with a wholly different one.

Bourdain's an unabashed hedonist. I like that. Rachael Ray is just obnoxious. I don't like that.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I'm about to hate myself - join in...

There is a niche role for Rachel Ray, and she fills it well. If Food Network is to have economic appeal and value, it has to be bigger than the foodies, home cooks, pro-cooks and wannabes. It has to bring in folks that don't cook.

Ray (and, to a slightly different, Emeril Live) talk to the folks that find cooking perilous or scary. "Go ahead, it isn't hard, I can show you how." (Plus, if the food-teacher says "buy my orange handled knives from Food Network", they will: BAM!)

That is part of what Food Network has to do. It doesn't mean I like it, or need it, or want it.

Bourdain is what the world needs of few of: A Bon Vivant. Someone that goes to the edge, looking for a great thing, and has an unquenchable need to share it. He is, to folks that care, what Rachel Ray is to those that should care: the impetus to that next, great, step.

In actual fact, he is far better at encouraging that next great step, than Ms Ray can ever hope to be. But he challenges, and that is his virtue, and she doesn't, and that is hers.