Since we’ve never actually identified ourselves on Ye Olde Cageboy blog, reading the various posts are a bit like peeling the layers of an onion. The sum of the parts will give you a pretty clear picture of what my associate and I are all about. And thus, we come to Skippy’s confession of the day….I’m completely mental for Food Network. I watch it all the time. If there is nothing on, I’m watching it. Sometimes I even forget to switch over to major sporting events or Presidential addresses because I’m watching Food Network. I’ve been watching it for years. And I must say, it’s done quite a bit of good and I’ve gained quite an impressive culinary education from the likes of Alton Brown (shown here), Bob Flay, Jamie Oliver, Anthony Bourdain, that fuzzy little bitch Emiril and others. Probably more by osmosis than actual study. The white noise of my daily routine includes information about fatty acids, various spices and varieties of food stuff from all over the world. In my case, it’s been effective. At the time I got married, I couldn’t cook anything to save my life. Neither could my wife. We spent our college lives living at home and working jobs while we went to class during the day. So, the first couple of years we were married, we ate whatever we could manage. It wasn’t pretty. And then we decided what the hell? It’s just us – if we ruin something in the kitchen, we’re the only ones that will suffer and go hungry. So, we honed and refined and came up with a half a dozen or so meals that we were pretty adept at throwing together. To this day, we still occasionally make a dish we have dubbed “Dirty Chicken”. It looks like a train wreck – but tastes fantastic – and it’s relatively healthy. Look for my Cageboy Cookbook coming soon!
Before we get off track – I want to get back to talking about the Food Network. And I want to say right up front that the premise of my problem with the FN is not my own. I can’t recall exactly where I read or heard the criticism – but it’s absolutely true – Food Network is making the same mistake MTV made back in the early 90’s. In the beginning, Food Network was just a collection of one “How To Cook This and That” show after another. Big time, expert chef’s breaking it down for we morons on the other end of the boob tube. Sometime recently Bobby Flay (who I don’t especially care for ANYWAY) went from being the resident grill monkey to “Throwing Down” all the time. Just friggin’ show me how to grill up a nice pork chop, you chowder head – you don’t have to run around getting in everybody’s face and challenging them to a duel. What the hell is up with that? Everything is a Challenge nowadays on FN. Nobody just cooks. Now Ace of Cakes I like. They seem like cool dudes that I’d hang out with – but here we have FN going down the road of reality programming. You are on VERY shaky ground here Food Network people! One minute MTV had awesome music videos and the next it was all Real World and Jackass. Don’t need that in my Food Network.
Seriously, I’m gonna punch out the Cageboy Cookbook – get a show – and the average schlub making Shake-n-Bake will return to basic cable and we’ll kick it up a notch – BAM!!!!
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