Sitting around yesterday morning while the snow outside prevented me from proceeding with my Sunday plans, I watched two shows on the Food Network I've never seen before. One was a guy named Dean, I think. Last name maybe Lieberman? Something like that. Claimed he was a personal chef. I thought he was a bit sloppy and imprecise with his technique, but he did something I thought rather clever. You know those splatter screens for frying pans? Well, he'd removed the plastic bit in the handle (apparently it snaps out) and what was left made a great pizza assembly-and-baking rack. Clever.
The other show I watched was two guys who called themselves The Hearty Boys, though the show had another name. Party Line? Seems devoted to food for entertaining. Well, they made lingonberry jam stuffed veal and beef meatballs, which they served on pea puree with mashed potatoes. I laughed out loud at the difference between the picture of the dish they showed at the beginning in the "here's what we're going to make" part, which obviously got help from a food stylist, and what they served to their friends (who were in studio waiting for dinner). The picture: a lovely smooth vibrant green pea puree, a stiff mountain of mashed potatoes, and a large meatball cut in half, beautiful jam insides showing like jewels. What they served: pale green soupy pea puree (too much cream in the blender), soupy mashed potatoes that laid flat on the peas (bad bad technique: they added all the hot cream and butter to the potatoes at once, and they added too much, so they got poor incorporation and couldn't get rid of the excess), topped by two ridiculously large, softball sized meatballs. One would have been a reasonable portion. Who are these guys?