The Gospel of the Food Network

It’s all about the Food Network. 

I love the Food Network. I remember visiting my grandma when I was in middle school and rolling my eyes for hours on end at the Food Network. Because…like seriously…like, nobody like, cool likes Emeril Lagassee.

If my teenage self met me now, she’d slap me in disappointment, because I can’t get enough of the Food Network. I love it all.

 

It all started with a brief love affair with 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray. Finally! A cooking show for the non-skillful! From Rachel Ray I ventured out: Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Mario Batali’s Molto Mario and Bobby Flay’s, Boy Meets Grill. It’s a cross between torture and bliss. Iron Chef in all of it’s “a-la-CUISINE-ing and handspring-y goodness definitely makes my top ten. And then. There is. The Food Porn Lady: Giada De Laurentiis. Nobody cuts an apple, makes a salad or roasts meat with her vaguely inappropriate flair: chop….slice….*sigh*. The best part of the Food Network though is that I don’t have be consistent. I can watch sometimes, occasionally or sporadically and I don’t miss out on plot or character development.

 

My recent love however has been Chefographies. I will make my children watch Chefographies when they hit their early twenties because it, like nothing else, makes me feel like I just might make it. The Chefs on Food Network are undoubtedly successful, they have their own TV shows, write books, own restaurants and run charities and catering businesses. Chefography tracks them from their beginnings to where they are now, answering the question: how did you get here? After watching just about every single Chefography I’ve found the similarity amongst them: not a single one of them had any idea of where they were heading. At last, I feel less lame for not really knowing where I’m headed. Less lame and vaguely more optimistic about the chances of where I’m heading will be a good place,

 

The trick (apparently) is to just keep moving. If one thing doesn’t work, you try something else. When that second thing doesn’t pan out how you want it, you find a 3^rd thing. Repeat as necessary. None of the FN stars had any inkling that they’d end up with a cooking show, in large part because Food Network TV didn’t exist until about ten years ago. Ina Garten was a high ranking government security advisor in her 20s and 30s until one day she quit to open her own specialty food store, about a billion steps later she’s the Barefoot Contessa. Bobby Flay was a high school dropout who haphazardly worked his butt off and now owns half a dozen restaurants and is a whole brand in and of himself. (I’m hoping the “hard work” part of his story 

 and not the “dropping out” part get’s absorbed in this lesson.)

 

So Lesson #1: Just keep moving.

 

Lesson #2 you ask? Good food makes for happy people.

So while I may not have made any New Year’s Resolutions this year, at least none well formed enough to write about here, I do have New Year’s / life plan. Be brave. Make changes when changes are needed. Eat good food and drink good wine with good people.