Word: chefs
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...restaurants in New York City, the breathless reviews from critics, a new Food Network show debuting next week (to complement his first, which is still airing), two cookbooks, a lovely family and a clean bill of health after surviving a brain aneurysm, Batali is always the other great American chef...
Which is too bad. Not because Batali cries into his pickled vegetable salad about his friend Lagasse's success. He doesn't. (When asked about Lagasse, Batali pauses and then begins, "He's the most famous chef of all time"--which, depending on how you think about it, isn't necessarily a compliment...
...artichoke). "Those great spiky leaves, that bitter, dirty-weed smell..." His voice trails off as though an ordinary vegetable has left him speechless with delight. But once again, it tastes wonderful when he puts a little vinegar and olive oil on it. That's the sign of a great chef: someone who takes a dirty weed and turns it into perfection...
Then the Food Network went platinum. It started with Emeril Lagasse, who turned into a Cajun cartoon on his popular, superanimated Emeril Live, but the trend solidified with shows like the campy and overexposed Japanese game show Iron Chef, which proved you can never underestimate the American appetite for laughing at those funny Asians...
...good news was that Americans, long accused of ushering in the culinary apocalypse with their love of supersizing and Shake 'n Bake, were watching TV about real food. But as the network focused on attracting noncooks and stoking its chefs' celebrity, it became harder and harder to find actual cooking on the network. There was Gordon Elliott, doing his version of Tom Green's ambush comedy on Door Knock Dinners; cute Brit Jamie Oliver having dinner with his girlfriend on The Naked Chef; and Jill Cordes and Marc Silverstein doing roving-food-reporter segments on The Best Of. When someone...