I sat down to watch a cake decorating show on Food Network, but it turned into a show about engineering. Could the bakers/designers duplicate (in cake) a favorite car? On the next show, they built a replica of a DJ’s sound board.
I like the cooking process so much I’ll watch, enthralled, while someone makes a sandwich, but I don’t want to watch cooks building structures out of food.
Food Network was a comforting, homey background for me, one I could leave on in a room while I did other things. When a recipe caught my eye, I’d stop and watch. I record every show I don’t want to miss and notice there are fewer now from Food Network. (However, I have in the process discovered Cooking Channel.)
Some of the Food Network’s changes are interesting, but shows that involve bizarre foods or non-foods lose me immediately.
The last time I sat down with a cup of coffee to visit with Food Network in real time, there were competitions going on most of the day. I’m not a fan of shows where cooks work against the clock, get critiqued and then eliminated. The shows where Food Network chooses their own “new stars?” I’d rather be left out of those decisions. Cooking as a sport doesn’t grab me, but I may be in the minority here.
Food preparation is giving way to food-as-adventure. I like shows where recipes are named and then prepared and then tasted and the host is personable, where a love of food and the cooking of same are stressed.
Dear Food Network, here’s what I like best: Cooking.
Ó Anita Garner 2009
I haven’t spent a lot of time with Food Network but I have caught some of the cooking competition shows and it’s just about the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen.
Why do we have to declare winners and losers in everything? We are we reveling in “kicking somebody off the island?”
I worry a lot about our society. Everything is a competition. Everything is geared to being “edgy.” Being contentious is being cool. We’re making anger and winning the measure of personal sucess.
“Nice” is the stuff of children’s fairy tales and old people’s history.
All those things you said – well put. They’re probably the reasons I don’t want my Food Network turning away from food.