My Addiction to Competitive Food Television

As corny as it sounds, I just can’t get enough of shows like Sweet Genius and Les Chefs! (‘aspirants chefs’ Quebec). Run of the mill save-a-penny, save-some-time meals don’t excite me. Nor does comfort food. After all, as a denizen of the lower order, the shows that feature this latter named fare are like “A day in the Life of Me’.

But to hear the mental ticking of the stopwatch, the see the puzzlement at the mystery ingredient, to feel the trauma of mistakes and experimental corrections of wannabes, nose-tips dripping sweat at their countdown plating, to see the karate chop cuisine, the acrobatics and the war of Iron Chef America, where the take down of the Mighty One-With-Folded-Arms is so tension-filled, these shows pump up my adrenaline.

Never mind the snootiness of the judges, never mind the semblance of wastage, never mind the humiliation for the loser who double-dipped or left behind a strand of hair on his or gourmet oeuvre. These performances, these excruciating displays are not only fodder for my imagination.

The eye candy is also a rush that satiates enough to keep me off from being chosen as The Biggest Loser, a pummeling, grinding uphill battle I fight every day (a show BTW, that deters me, nay scares the hell out of me from me opening my fridge during commercials).  

I am also a fan of messy fun food challenge, which I believe is at the heart of experimenting with taste. Keep with “Can you Blend it?’, O Carla of The Chew! After all it’s this kind of zany art that leads to the salivation experienced at, say,  the thought of that dab of Nutella or I can’t Believe it’s not Butter that we now take for granted.