Cablevision and the Food Network

I am sure many of you know that Cablevision and Scripps (Food Network and HGTV) were unable to come to an agreement, and thus, I (a Cablevision Subscriber) have had no Food Network since the new year. I am not a huge Food TV fan, but I do like some shows, ie Alton Brown, Tyler Florence, Iron Chef, some of the reality TV, etc. I think more than anything, I am just annoyed that this was not taken care of already. Anyone else in this situation? I was able to finally watch the Super Iron Chef match off last night, since Scripps aired an encore episode on a local channel. GRRRR!

We are on satellite here and I have not been to the Food Network in months. What makes me mad when this happens is that you still have to pay the full bill.

[Jenise]

Maria, I have the FN just fine but rarely watch, typically only when I'm sick. And I was sick all weekend this weekend. Some random thoughts:

Rachel Ray: "Every family in America has Sandwich Night at least once a week." No, Rachel, you moron, we don't.

Sandra Lee: She makes filet mignon with a blue cheese topping, baked onions and a potato souffle. The filet mignons take 6 minutes to broil medium. The quartered and marinated onions baked for 25 minutes. And the potato souffle took an hour. She made them in this order: filets, onions, potatoes. Are we blonde or what? And don't get me started on the cocktail.

Barefoot Contessa: She wore a brown shirt. Not blue, but brown. Okay yes, it was exactly the same cut as the royal blue ones, which she must buy by the croaker sack since up until now and for years it is the only shirt and the only color she's ever worn. It's like her own personal Mao suit. I was so excited I wanted to call somebody. And then she made baked eggs: cream and butter in the bottom of a shallow dish topped with three freshly cracked eggs which are then topped with chopped fresh herbs and a bit of parmesan cheese and broiled for five minutes until the whites are cooked through. She made two of these in separate baking dishes, one each for her and her husband. For this dish she chopped three different herbs with a plan for 1/4 tsp for each , and after chopping each one she jangled that set of measuring spoons in order to select out the 1/4 tsp one in her left hand (jingle jingle) while the fingers of her right hand laboriously filled that little spoon one pinch at a time in order to put exactly 1/4 tsp (jingle jingle), not one microgram more or less, on each serving, and though yes I was sick and perhaps not my usual patient self I wanted to reach into that TV and rip those damned spoons out of her hand and order her to just eyeball the rest--it's a topping, Ina! It's enough when it looks like enough! You're a big girl, you can work this out! And this is what drives me nuts about Ina Garten--she's so exact, like world peace rests on perfect measurements, and it can be painful to watch even for someone like me who had nothing but time to waste this weekend. Somebody needs to take those spoons away from her.

A new show called Worst Cook in America: I thought the premise sounded awful--a group of around 20 clueless-about-cooking people who "according to your friends and family, are some of the worst cooks in America..." had a simple dish using shortcut ingredients like canned chicken stock and soy sauce demonstrated to them. They each then attempted to reproduce it, and the two pro chefs decided which two of the resulting disasters were the lamest and sent those bims home. And I would care which clueless noncook accidentally won this why? The contestants might as well be chimpanzees.

That Iron Chef special: saw it this weekend, too. The hype was ridiculous and the show underwelming--unless you love watching Emeril sweat. I'd have been scared to death to eat his food, and if the thought crossed my mind that a dish of his had too much salt I'd have probably thrown up. Oh, and I'm absolutely certain that the judging was rigged: the White House chef was just not going to lose this one, trust me.

And that's what you've been missing.

Jenise, I'm in hysterics over your description of Ina's show. So funny.
Hope you are feeling better.

Maria, I have the FN just fine but rarely watch, typically only when I'm sick. And I was sick all weekend this weekend. Some random thoughts:

Rachel Ray: "Every family in America has Sandwich Night at least once a week." No, Rachel, you moron, we don't.

Well, SOME of us do.

And wouldn't the "worst Chef" show be more meaningful if the person who cooked the best dish got sent home? Then it might be more interesting. As it is, you get the best of the worst as winner, not the worst of the worst.

[Jenise]

[quote="Robert Reynolds"]
Hey, don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with a great sandwich. But the idea that because she does it everybody does it, well, that's just not correct.

There's no bad mood that a peanut butter and honey sandwich won't cure. Especially if washed down with a high-enough proof!

Jenise,

Let me guess...You saw Sandra Lee twice? Once as the host of her own show and then as a contestant on Worst Cooks in America?

Jenise... loved your review of the food channel. Now I don't feel so guilty about not watching it!

OMG Jenise...I was seriously LOLing here. You are too funny!! Ahhh, you are so right and now I feel much better...hehe. Hope you feel better soon!

I hate the time lag on the remote when I'm attempting to click through the Clown Network.

Everything about Ina Garten bugs me. Even more than Rachael Ray. She will measure something for baking and announce that she is very careful with measurements when she bakes - come on! she is careful with all measurements even when it calls for a pinch of salt! Her dishes look good, I would even consider using some of her recipes, but jeez! Plus that silly laugh gets on my nerves.

Even Alton Brown is annoying now, he apparently lost fifty pounds and one of the recipes for his new diet was sardines on toast with mashed avocados!! Are you kidding me?? What next? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich recipe?

Iron Chef has its moments but it insults my and the contestants' intelligence when it brings stupid actors to serve as judges; Wow! claimed one actress last week, I never had rabbit before and I can't believe I like it!! Gag! Can we have Jeffrey Steingarten and Ted Allen all the time please?

Sorry about the rant. I guess I'm just in a bad mood now that Top Chef is over.

Personally, I really like Ina Garten. I like her prissiness and her precision, her clothes, her shiny hair, her fabulous kitchen, her extraordinary garden and her geeky husband, Jeffrey. And, as for her clothes, everyone on the food network has their personal way of dress to fit their personality and the show's theme. RR: punk band casual; SL: kitchen cocktail shabby chic; Giada: XXX stretch jersey... It's entertainment, as we have all proved by our snarky comments. But, the most insightful take on the food network -- indeed, the whole food and cooking game these days, was given serious thought, and well written exposé in a recent NY Times article titled Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch. It's lengthy, but well worth the investment of time to read it. I've been reading it in installments to my radio audience.

Erica Gruen, the cable executive often credited with putting the Food Network on the map in the late ’90s, recognized early on that, as she told a journalist, “people don’t watch television to learn things.” So she shifted the network’s target audience from people who love to cook to people who love to eat, a considerably larger universe and one that — important for a cable network — happens to contain a great many more men.

Interesting. Right before she changed directions I had been contacted by The Food Network and asked to do a pilot for them - an instructional pilot. Hooked up with a professional video team and we became partners.

We did the pilot and thought it was pretty good. (It was all about shrimp, how to buy them, what kinds to buy - and not buy - and then several ways to cook them). 22-minute pilot.

Sent it in. Waited. Waited. Waited.

Finally contacted. We were told the network was changing its focus. And that they had changed program directors. No more real, instructional, "cooking" shows. They were leaning toward entertainment.

Just thought I'd share my personal experience with this phenomenon.

Been a long time since David Rosengarten's "Taste".

[Jenise]

Jenise,

Let me guess...You saw Sandra Lee twice? Once as the host of her own show and then as a contestant on Worst Cooks in America?

At least she doesn't own measuring spoons.

[Jenise]

Erica Gruen, the cable executive often credited with putting the Food Network on the map in the late ’90s, recognized early on that, as she told a journalist, “people don’t watch television to learn things.” So she shifted the network’s target audience from people who love to cook to people who love to eat, a considerably larger universe and one that — important for a cable network — happens to contain a great many more men.

Interesting. Right before she changed directions I had been contacted by The Food Network and asked to do a pilot for them - an instructional pilot. Hooked up with a professional video team and we became partners.

We did the pilot and thought it was pretty good. (It was all about shrimp, how to buy them, what kinds to buy - and not buy - and then several ways to cook them). 22-minute pilot.

Sent it in. Waited. Waited. Waited.

Finally contacted. We were told the network was changing its focus. And that they had changed program directors. No more real, instructional, "cooking" shows. They were leaning toward entertainment.

Just thought I'd share my personal experience with this phenomenon.

Sad story but not unexpected. As Jeff said, Rosengarten has left the building, and so have the other chefs worth watching (Ming, Mario, etc).

Thank god for PBS: the other night I happened to stumble over their Create channel and find an episode of Jacques and Julia. Together they made a turkey dinner. I had the best time: Jacques was so patient and amused by her contributions, and so indulgent of her, while she was so sloppy and opinionated on things she probably wasn't right about. Food TV at its best.

Jenise, have you no compassion? It is entertainment....they are not able to really do what they'd like to do. That is why Sara Moulton and Ming Tsi moved on, or so they said. I can't stand Sandra Lee with her perfectly matched clothes and kitchen background, who does that anyway? Rachael Ray puts out some darned good food and so does Ina. They are both people I'd like to know, especially Ina. I have heard that she is a very gracious lady. Our neighbors across the street owned a pharmacy where Martha Stewart grew up and they told me she and her family were great. I like watching Martha too, just for the laughs I get when she grabs the spoon away from somebody and says "this is how you do this!"

Each show has it's own charm and you have to appreciate it for what it is. Of course, you have the choice of watching or not. Frankly, I have not watched the Food Network for months. I have enough in my own kitchen to do and take care of and believe me there is plenty of comedy here, as well.

[Jenise]

Jenise, have you no compassion?

None, because as you said it's entertainment. My options are to like what I see or not.

Rachael Ray puts out some darned good food and so does Ina. They are both people I'd like to know, especially Ina. I have heard that she is a very gracious lady.

Rachel's popular. Obviously there's a market for what she does. In fact, according to some outfit that monitors all such things, on newsstands Rachel and Paula outsell every other foodwriter alive. So it's in fact a very big market. But her style of cooking doesn't interest me. Doesn't mean nobody else should watch her and in fact she herself is not the problem with the food network: it's the extent to which entertainment has completely replaced instruction. And since I remember and valued how it used to be, I own my right to resent the change. And not the one that allowed her to have a show, but the one that resulted in her having three or four other shows on the same network at the same time. And Ina's okay: I don't hate her as a person, I'm sure I'd love having her for a neighbor and a number of my friends are cooking better food these days because they bought her books and cook from them. (And I 'met' her husband on the egg episode, he's adorable.) And unlike Rachel's program, I've seen Ina's a time or two and thought that something she made sounded like a good idea.

Of course, you have the choice of watching or not.

No I don't, not when I'm stuck in bed sick and it's a weekend and there's no news on. It was either Ina, Cops or football.

Been a long time since David Rosengarten's "Taste".

I liked David. (And he liked my book ).

Jenise, I love your personality...you tell it as you feel it, my kind of person. The differences are what makes the world of humans interesting! Can you imagine a reunion of posters here, you, I, Chefs, Maria, Mike, JoAnn, Dave and all the rest. OMG, the noise level would be over the top!