Beyond the pure joy of watching two chefs battle to create haute cuisine within the 60 minute time limit, and despite the at-times-extravagant ingredients, ICA (Iron Chef America) serves as an culinary inspiration for me. I love watching the cooking techniques that are used and each week I take away some new ideas in this regard. But for me, I am most interested and inspired by the way that each chef pairs flavors and textures and the way they finish their dishes (plating + saucing). These are the things that I feel like are often overlooked when it comes to home cooking— these are the things that take a meal from expected to exceptional. I love to eat as well as cook so I guess its not surprising that I have become increasingly interested in creating more that a mere meal. Favoring the fabrication of phenomenal eating experiences at home. It doesn’t even mean that the meals take more time to create, just more thought, care and attention to the three Ps: plates. presentation. portions.
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Filed under: cooking, eating, entertainment., food., iron chef america, personal., reality tv, thoughts, tv
There are not many shows that I feel I need to watch on the night that they air. This season American Idol roped me in with the whole Sanjaya drama and the obnoxious New Jersey girl with the slutty internet pics. (who incidentally, represented all that is wrong with the state we successfully fled from last year) And Idol is a show that you have to watch the night that it airs so that you can be part of all the conversations the next day. But on Sunday nights, my television belongs to foodtv. That’s right the ultimate food geek showdown based on the classic Japanese show— Iron Chef America. It lacks the poor over-dubbed voices and the overly-dramatic theatrics of its Japanese counterpart but still delivers about 35 minutes of intense cooking action.
For me this show signals the end of the weekend and is the last opportunity for self indulgence before the work week officially begins. The show requires little-to-no-thinking and is a great show to vegitate intfront of. Usually our DVR clicks on as the show is beginning and we prep ourselves a snack and a grown-up drink that usually involves lime juice; Belvedere gimlets, or margaritas with Herradura tequila are the most commonly consumed Sunday night cocktails. So, drinks mixed and snack-less we sit on the sofa to fire up this weeks episode of ICA and skipping the Iron chef intros to get straight to the action.
To our surprise the challenging chef is José Andrés the head chef at our absolute favorite DC restaurant Jaleo. This is the restaurant that I give credit for opening up my palette and truly beginning my love/passion for food. Now the illusion of the show is that the challenging chef gets to pick who they will face in kitchen stadium (in reality they are picked weeks before the battle takes place) I thought for sure that he was going to ‘pick’ Mario Batali but instead calls out Bobby Flay— our favorite NYC restauranture and the person whose cookbook taught me some of the best cooking techniques for pairing and extracting big, bold flavors. We are sitting on the sofa hot with anticipation and the affects of the gimlets and for a fraction of a second we were in food geek heaven— head chefs from 2 of our all-time favorite eating establishments are about to face off. And then the words that provoked a simultaneous “what the fuck?”—
“the secret ingredient is… Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., food., iron chef america, life, reality tv, tv
