(Warning: This program contains content that is carnivore-friendly. Vegan viewers discretion is advised.)
A few years ago, if you’d told me I’d be hooked on a TV food show, I would have laughed. No way!
No way would I spend my time watching a show with someone slaving away in a kitchen, mincing and chopping and dicing and braising and sautéing and putting stuff into a salamander, which I thought was a type of lizard but turns out to also be a type of oven.
Watching people preparing food is boring.
Eating food – now, that’s fun.
But one night, apparently desperate for something to watch, my husband and I were channel surfing and encountered a guy who made us wonder…
Who was this guy?
He had peroxided blond porcupine hair in a “do” I don’t know the name of. And tattoos. Major tattoos. And bling – lots of bling. A mustache, a goatee, and a vocal style that ranged from loud to histrionic.
Who was this guy?
He looked like a hungover Hell’s Angel and sounded like a Wolfman Jack wannabe, not like anyone who knew anything about food.
We watched him with the same fascination you experience watching two cars crash – stunned, yet unable to look away.
Who was this guy?
This guy was Guy Fieri, and his show was the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
And by the end of the show…
We were hooked.
Fast forward a few years and we’re still hooked on Guy and Diners. Fieri is a chef but doesn’t prepare the food – he talks to chefs in diners, driver-ins and dives as they’re making the food. He’s silly and serious and super-knowledgeable about food ingredients and interactions.
But what we like about him best is – he’s always, always complimentary. No matter what the chef is serving up, Guy finds good things to say about it, such as:
“This is the fast lane to Flavortown!”
“This scallop is out…of…bounds!”
“Chef, you’re the bomb!”
“That slice is so thin, it only has one side!”
“Off…the…hook!”
And my favorite…
I’ve never heard Fieri say one negative thing on Diners, and bottom line, that’s why we like it – and him.
Plus, Fieri is fun. He takes the fine art of food preparation seriously – but not himself.
So now, in these lockdown-shelter-in-place times, Guy and Diners are especially welcome. Also welcome is that recently in my area, the Food Network is carrying the show on both Friday and Saturday evenings.
And we look forward to it.
I don’t envision my hub and I watching other Food Network shows. Delicious Miss Brown? Ew. Chopped? Ouch. The Pioneer Woman? What does she do – rope a wild steer and butcher it while birthing a baby and battling a locust storm?
Although, depending on how long the lockdown lasts, I may be driven to look at that Pioneer Woman thing.
Skewered locusts, anyone?
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