can you hear me now?

Let me just say that as a baker I love cooking shows. I think even if I wasn't I'd still enjoy them just the same. The show that I'm really hooked on this summer is Hell's Kitchen and I've got to say, it's probably the best show I've seen in a while. It's very real, not in that geeky, I just want my face on tv reality whore show, but there's a goal, something real to win. Of course there's a monetary prize, and the chance to run your own restaurant, but that's the real prize. Someone's career, their life, can be created just by the showing what they can do in a high pressure, high stakes environment. I'm a huge proponent of being able to see what someone can do by how hard you can push them. Alot of people just go to work, do their job, go home, just waiting for the clock to tick five. But this type of work is not a typical job, there is so much more involvement in the actual process of creating the work for yourself. Not to mention the pride it produces when you see someone truly enjoying the fruits of that labor. I know I'm not a great baker, I'm a mediocre cook, but when I hear people telling me how good something is that I made, you always enjoy the compliment, but when you hear the comment days, or weeks later, that sense of accomplishment is something to relish.

In addition to Hells Kitchen, Gordon Ramsey, the head chef on Hells Kitchen, has a new show slated to start in the fall called Kitchen Nightmares. It's basically about Ramsey going into problem kitchens and putting the right pieces of the puzzle in their respective spots. Lazy cooks, bad waiters or dispondent owners are going to be put to the test, which I can't wait to see. There were a couple of places I've worked at where I wish I had the clout, time in, and renown to basically call all the shots and straighten bosses out.


Going along with the whole cooking tangent, I've been watching a great tv show in dvd called Kitchen Confidential. Now this shows been canceled for a long time, but just came out on dvd not too long ago and I think it's great. I really wish it wasn't canceled but it was pretty much a shock to the cast too. Anyway, the show was based on another renowned chef, Anthony Bourdain. This guy has traveled all over the globe and wrote many a cook book. The show was well put together and really conveyed the life a cook leads. The environment is totally made up of course, but it's still realistic and believable to see someone take great joy in their career.

And with that, when I get back from my vacation, I'm going to start a new column on this piece of shit. I'm going to go to a different restaurant, once a week, different places, different cuisine, and write a column critiquing the food. I love to eat, I love to go to new places, try new things, even if I don't wind up enjoying the food, or the place. But I'm the type of person to dive in with both hands, never been one to shy away from doing shit. So that's my plan for the upcoming summer and fall and so on. I hope whoever reads this and the other columns that I'll write or have written will enjoy whats to come and can take what I write to mind whenever they travel out.