The Lonesome Road

I am not a great cook. The best I can do in the cooking department is boil water, make tea, a weak coffee, some egg dishes and maggi. Note that I have not included toast in this list - even though the temptation was very strong.

However, my sense of taste (as Anshul will attest) is very strong. I am the official taster for most of the food made in the house. It’s a pretty demanding (yeah, right) job and I try to do my best.

The thing is today I was watching TV with a few friends and we spent most of it watching The Food Network. For those of you who do not know, this channel (as the name suggests, deals almost exclusively with - you guessed it FOOD! This is mostly in the age old format of cooking shows and competitions).

Here’s the rub - I enjoy seeing these chefs at work. It’s almost an art with them. It’s amazing to watch them cut, slice, dice, braize, stew - well you get the idea. One show I really like to catch is Iron Chef America. It takes two chefs and pits them head to head. The idea is to make 5-6 dishes - all in the span of one hour - and all incorporating a secret ingredient that is revealed just as they are about to cook as the primary ingredient of each dish. The kitchen stadium that they work in becomes a scene of controlled chaos for the next hour as the chefs seek to outdo their rival in a battle of taste, presentation and originality. Of course - at the end of the hour - only one chef walks away victorius.

The original Iron Chef was a Japanese concept (big surprise here). I managed to catch an episode of that as well. Unfortunately the show tends to become a comedy as the dubbing is poor - and quite quirky with the dialogues. One major difference between the American and Japanese versions is that the japanese take more time to introduce the Iron Chef and the Challenger - which leads to them compressing the amount of time they show the chefs cook. In the American version, it’s a quick intro followed by more action shots of the chefs doing what they do best.

Though most of the shows on the network are standard cooking shows, every once in a while there is a major competition on the cards. The last one I saw was a pastry competition. There were six teams and they had to make a pastry structure using cupcakes as the base ingredient. The rules were that the structures should be made primarily (75% of volume) of cupcakes and had to be atleast 6 inches high. The final structures that came out were a dessert lovers’ delight. Of course - the competition was made harder by the fact that the completed pastries had to be brought to the judging table - without breaking. All in all - good fun.

You must be thinking I’m crazy by now. No - the Food Network has not inspired my to take up a skillet and wok yet. But I do appreciate good food - and it’s always a treat to watch an expert at work

Until next time - Bon Appétit.