Kathleen From The Bronx
09-06-2007, 07:39 PM
Dear Ron and Fez Shooow,
I'm not trying to get up on a soap box here.....(slowly tries to inconspicuously step up and wobbly balance on a soap box).....but man.... will The Food Network ever cease disappointing me!?? I didn't know that they had dropped Mario Batali from the line up either!! You guys were talkin about that towards the end of the show today, and I serioulsy have been thinking about his departure ever since! I have noticed that Mario wasn't around so much lately... I guess I should have seen it a-comin, just like that one caller who claimed that Anthony Bourdain had predicted as much.... Wise...wiiise Anthony Bourdain.....
Sure I can be a nostalgic old fool and I'm able to shake my cane at the whippersnappers with the best of em yellin, "Well in my daaaay!!" while remembering simpler times.... but sometimes I do so miss those early Food Network years......whenever that was... the mid-90's? Ahhh...... Maybe I have just always kind of wanted to go to culinary school... but I loved those unadorned days of straight-up, stand-up cooking shows.....that were more instructional than entertainment. I would sit there skribblin down recipes in my notebooks like these shows were classes...... and I so LOVED it.... I suppose I cannot blame the station for consistently wanting to expand its audience with the lure of attractive and likable personalities...... So many of the shows there now are beautifully produced and sparkly...... but I have to say that's not what I went there for...Sure I dig seeing people travel and I still do jot down restaurants that I have to visit if I have one day to spend in some city or town... but......sighhhh...
It's nice to be nice.....but.... I can forgive a lot though if I think that you know what your talkin about in the kitchen.....There were certain people in those early days that came off like insufferable, fastidious pricks.....but I would watch those shows like crazy anyway, taking notes...cause it was clear that there was care about ingredients and the correct way to do things...Perhaps I just associate instructors, who are on the verge of crankiness at all times, with actual attention to detail.
They might smack your face or spit an under-ripe raspberry right back in ya eyeball if the situation called for it.... I just kinda respect that passion for wanting to bring the best to the table... I just appreciate that! I didn't care so much about potential interactions with people.... be as smarty-pants and know-it-alls with human beings as much as you want... I don't care if you love them.... Love food and we're good.... I wouldn't want to hang out with em, but come over and cook dinner for me and then leave promptly, any day of the week as far as I'm concerned!
I'm not gonna pile-on the complaints about the current line up... and the queen, who in my mind personifies everything I do not dig about now-a-days over there.... Rachel Ray...and her likability.... I've never really been a fan. It's just that...does anyone believe she can cook? I'll keep this short, but my last straw wit that one was when I was watchin her 30 Minute Meals and her recommendation for a side dish was opening a bag of frozen tater-tots and adding Italian seasoning before baking...... That, my dear friends RnF, is a total shoot. I was like, "WHAT???!" That is high-food, homies.... Your friends might carry you around on their shoulders after that gem of a concoction if it was 3 in the morning and you were all baked..... but..... for real???? I guess this is why people scream, "SNOB!!!" in my face...... but when it comes to those helpful hints... I'm sorry..... maybe I just want things to be more special....... You can't, "teach," me on television to dump a jar of salsa into rice and expect my eyes to mist up with appreciation for you. I've oft wondered if maybe she just gave herself like an extra 15 more minutes....maybe everything could have been different between us..... I kinda doubt it though.....
AND it's not that I think that Mario Batali is unlikeable either! I don't find him cantankerous at all.... I just associate him with those old skool Food Network peoples...a fuckin expert.. Now that he's vanishing.... Man....it just feels like the last of my ole buddies from over there is gone....OK just real quick... a couple more things!! Jumpin Jehoshaphat... Ya'd think by the way I've gone on and on here that you were talkin about him all day....nooo...!I'll wrap this up in a stream of consciousness rant that I'll call, "What I love about Mario Batali:"
I love knowing the importance of seasonal cooking.... love knowing the regions of Italy and what foods they produce.... Liguria by the sea is green like pesto...smells like herbs in the Summer air; artichokes there....... Abruzzo, he'd pronounce like, "ABRRRUTZI".....some of the best cooks in all of Italy..... and his beloved Emilia- Romagna, home of prociutto de parma...... and... parmigiano reggiano "the undisputed king of of Italian cheeses," he said so many times that now so do I.... If I'm buyin a hunk of it in the store....or if I'm at home and cooking I'll say that phrase every time...I love knowing all that stuff... I love it that one year on the Soprano's Carm gave him a shout out at their Thanksgiving dinner, "These string beans are Mario Batali's recipe,"...... I love that when I bought one of his books, readin the dedication amidst thanking his family he acknowledged Tom Waits as well, "for all the inspiration...." I thought... This man understands pain and how to squash it with food..God Bless you, ya orange-lookin bastard!... Ya too good fer 'em, Mario....
OK..... soo.... "RnF," as you now wanna be called....... I was thinking maybe all of that rambling there might stem from a lil part of me that maybe secretly has always wanted to be Italian....a lil bit... for like... the cooking alone! I dunno.... but I can tell you this.... I was sad to hear about the passing of Luciano Pavoratti today as well....... Ron was sayin that Pavarotti always seemed like a guy who really enjoyed life... and good food.....just seemed like he was someone who would have a gigantic, thunderous laugh..... I agree. I got to see him sing this one time at the now demolished, U.S. Air Arena in Maryland cause this friend of mine was goin wit her parents and she invited me along....
It's not as though I knew much about the music...... It's not like I'm one who sits around listening to opera, drinking wine all day and crying..... weeellll... at least not the opera part.... but I knew who he was... and I wanted to see him.....and it was pretty amazing. As silly as it might sound...to hear him sing, "O Sole Mio," was so fuckin amazing I could have cried right there.. I was like... "What, what is this??" feeling my face with my fingers nervously, " Are these HUMAN emotions??" I don't' know if it was just the way in which those notes he reached hit you right in the gut, or if it was one of those times where it just felt a little like tapping into something so great...but I was just glad that nobody noticed me freakin a little there, "What are you, some gangster in the balcony?" I asked myself..... Sounds so cliche right...??? Yeah... Glad that went unnoticed.....OR maybe it didn't....... You guys did talk about today how we are all on camera all the time....Ohhh God.... I hate the thought of being on camera almost as one Fez Marie Whatley...
I wonder just how many dumb things I've done that have been captured for posterity....Shuddderrrr....Like Ron asked, "Who's watching the watchers??!" Yikes....
Ronnie was sayin how in his life he's, "never seen technology roll back," so the constantly being on camera is going to delve further and further into our lives, I dare say.....We all think it's ridiculous and yet it keeps happenin more and more....It's already happening....in stores, and at red lights.....Google Earth.....EZ Pass.....Ron was saying how the credit card companies track what your buying to the point that we may, ourselves, eventually not even realize that the choices we make in purchasing are not necessarilly being made by us...... Oh shit... one thing that had me laughin so hard was how after he said that.... Dave proclaimed, "THAT is why I don't even have a credit card!" to which Ronnie responded, "Nah!! THAT'S not why!" I dunno....
That whole credit card conspiracy was the one that got to me the most though, for some reason...... I have often wondered why we get so many catalogs addressed to us that we have never, and would never buy anything from.... Now that I think of a credit card company tracking my purchases and deciding that these are goods that I'd somehow be lured into buying I am highly insulted! I assume that they are the culprits behind much of my junk mail...... What the hell do I need with so much of this shit!!??!
Not too long ago I got a catalog with all these, "As Seen On TV," type gadgets and contraptions....... I was like, "WHYYY!!!??" I felt annoyed then... but if this is what those companies think that I'd be into.... well now I feel persecuted!! Listen, a certain grandmother of mine was somehow roped into buying one of those home vacuum-sealers from a very similar store.... "Try it out! It's maaaarvelous!!!" she said... So we had all these hoagies and were headin to the beach.... We sealed em right up and put em in the cooler...... Oooooh couldn't wait to rip into them them after a few hours in the sun and surf..... No, no.... that's not how the story ends my friends!! We opened that cooler up to find us some soggy ass sammiches..... Fuck dat shit! Uuuhhh.... Oh yeah.... so what I am sayin is...... I have been gettin all these catalogs addressed to us.... and now I'm pissed that this is what the credit card companies think of me! That I am interested!??
Not even a week ago we got one with all these like, gag gifts in em....There was a trucker's hat the read, "Shit Head," with a disgusting steaming log emblazoned on it...... What!??? That might be the most blatant insult that I have received in years... That I might consider buyin such a thing...???! You send this to MY home!??? Please........ This one company apparently was a big pusher of gimmicky hats....... cause another advertised beauty was this safari lookin hat that had a fan attached to it...... "Stay cool this Summer!!!" it beckoned.....
Oh my .... GOD! What kind of lunatic would order that???? Why do they think I would??!?????!! I'm gonna be some asshole at the beach wearin that hat like... "Heeey... the rest of you jerks roast in the sun.... not me..... I'm keeeepin cooooool......" Oy....but.....they dooo also sell these pencils that you can have our name printed on...so...
Well, once again RnF, you have opened my eyes!
Annnyway....Ron and Fez Show.... It was a beautiful day here... a perfect September day... just like yesterday...Well, one thing... It's always a good day for me that starts off with Rushmore quotes in the opening...... not to mention hearing Bill from John From Cincinnati drops when Earl repeats back shit to Ron that he just said.... So When Ron was talking about it being one of those days that brought you right back to 9/11.......my mind skipped ahead, like trying to anticipate what it was he was gonna say.... Was it that it was that it had been an impeccable cloudless day at first, that reminded him of how that terrible day started off.....Was it a gorgeous, no clouds in the September sky kinda day up there that reminded him...??? Nooope..
It was the screaming masses of people, fleeing.... tearing away from disaster.....again....but this time they were running away from the Maroon 5 show taking place....Holy shit man, I cackled!!! I did not anticipate that! I fuckin laughed so hard at that Maroon 5 tale of horror..... Ron said, "I was running...running hard as I could! And it wasn't me...but someone pushed over Pepper Hicks' mother!!!" Oh dude...... I felt a little bad for laughing at that...a leetle..... but mostly I could understand....I could understand just wanting to escape the abomination!
OK..... As usual, I feel like I have not even barely grazed the surface of all the topics that you guys talked about today which had me so captivated... but I can't have yez sittin here straining your peepers all night..... Have a good weekend amigos! Peace out....
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)
I'm not trying to get up on a soap box here.....(slowly tries to inconspicuously step up and wobbly balance on a soap box).....but man.... will The Food Network ever cease disappointing me!?? I didn't know that they had dropped Mario Batali from the line up either!! You guys were talkin about that towards the end of the show today, and I serioulsy have been thinking about his departure ever since! I have noticed that Mario wasn't around so much lately... I guess I should have seen it a-comin, just like that one caller who claimed that Anthony Bourdain had predicted as much.... Wise...wiiise Anthony Bourdain.....
Sure I can be a nostalgic old fool and I'm able to shake my cane at the whippersnappers with the best of em yellin, "Well in my daaaay!!" while remembering simpler times.... but sometimes I do so miss those early Food Network years......whenever that was... the mid-90's? Ahhh...... Maybe I have just always kind of wanted to go to culinary school... but I loved those unadorned days of straight-up, stand-up cooking shows.....that were more instructional than entertainment. I would sit there skribblin down recipes in my notebooks like these shows were classes...... and I so LOVED it.... I suppose I cannot blame the station for consistently wanting to expand its audience with the lure of attractive and likable personalities...... So many of the shows there now are beautifully produced and sparkly...... but I have to say that's not what I went there for...Sure I dig seeing people travel and I still do jot down restaurants that I have to visit if I have one day to spend in some city or town... but......sighhhh...
It's nice to be nice.....but.... I can forgive a lot though if I think that you know what your talkin about in the kitchen.....There were certain people in those early days that came off like insufferable, fastidious pricks.....but I would watch those shows like crazy anyway, taking notes...cause it was clear that there was care about ingredients and the correct way to do things...Perhaps I just associate instructors, who are on the verge of crankiness at all times, with actual attention to detail.
They might smack your face or spit an under-ripe raspberry right back in ya eyeball if the situation called for it.... I just kinda respect that passion for wanting to bring the best to the table... I just appreciate that! I didn't care so much about potential interactions with people.... be as smarty-pants and know-it-alls with human beings as much as you want... I don't care if you love them.... Love food and we're good.... I wouldn't want to hang out with em, but come over and cook dinner for me and then leave promptly, any day of the week as far as I'm concerned!
I'm not gonna pile-on the complaints about the current line up... and the queen, who in my mind personifies everything I do not dig about now-a-days over there.... Rachel Ray...and her likability.... I've never really been a fan. It's just that...does anyone believe she can cook? I'll keep this short, but my last straw wit that one was when I was watchin her 30 Minute Meals and her recommendation for a side dish was opening a bag of frozen tater-tots and adding Italian seasoning before baking...... That, my dear friends RnF, is a total shoot. I was like, "WHAT???!" That is high-food, homies.... Your friends might carry you around on their shoulders after that gem of a concoction if it was 3 in the morning and you were all baked..... but..... for real???? I guess this is why people scream, "SNOB!!!" in my face...... but when it comes to those helpful hints... I'm sorry..... maybe I just want things to be more special....... You can't, "teach," me on television to dump a jar of salsa into rice and expect my eyes to mist up with appreciation for you. I've oft wondered if maybe she just gave herself like an extra 15 more minutes....maybe everything could have been different between us..... I kinda doubt it though.....
AND it's not that I think that Mario Batali is unlikeable either! I don't find him cantankerous at all.... I just associate him with those old skool Food Network peoples...a fuckin expert.. Now that he's vanishing.... Man....it just feels like the last of my ole buddies from over there is gone....OK just real quick... a couple more things!! Jumpin Jehoshaphat... Ya'd think by the way I've gone on and on here that you were talkin about him all day....nooo...!I'll wrap this up in a stream of consciousness rant that I'll call, "What I love about Mario Batali:"
I love knowing the importance of seasonal cooking.... love knowing the regions of Italy and what foods they produce.... Liguria by the sea is green like pesto...smells like herbs in the Summer air; artichokes there....... Abruzzo, he'd pronounce like, "ABRRRUTZI".....some of the best cooks in all of Italy..... and his beloved Emilia- Romagna, home of prociutto de parma...... and... parmigiano reggiano "the undisputed king of of Italian cheeses," he said so many times that now so do I.... If I'm buyin a hunk of it in the store....or if I'm at home and cooking I'll say that phrase every time...I love knowing all that stuff... I love it that one year on the Soprano's Carm gave him a shout out at their Thanksgiving dinner, "These string beans are Mario Batali's recipe,"...... I love that when I bought one of his books, readin the dedication amidst thanking his family he acknowledged Tom Waits as well, "for all the inspiration...." I thought... This man understands pain and how to squash it with food..God Bless you, ya orange-lookin bastard!... Ya too good fer 'em, Mario....
OK..... soo.... "RnF," as you now wanna be called....... I was thinking maybe all of that rambling there might stem from a lil part of me that maybe secretly has always wanted to be Italian....a lil bit... for like... the cooking alone! I dunno.... but I can tell you this.... I was sad to hear about the passing of Luciano Pavoratti today as well....... Ron was sayin that Pavarotti always seemed like a guy who really enjoyed life... and good food.....just seemed like he was someone who would have a gigantic, thunderous laugh..... I agree. I got to see him sing this one time at the now demolished, U.S. Air Arena in Maryland cause this friend of mine was goin wit her parents and she invited me along....
It's not as though I knew much about the music...... It's not like I'm one who sits around listening to opera, drinking wine all day and crying..... weeellll... at least not the opera part.... but I knew who he was... and I wanted to see him.....and it was pretty amazing. As silly as it might sound...to hear him sing, "O Sole Mio," was so fuckin amazing I could have cried right there.. I was like... "What, what is this??" feeling my face with my fingers nervously, " Are these HUMAN emotions??" I don't' know if it was just the way in which those notes he reached hit you right in the gut, or if it was one of those times where it just felt a little like tapping into something so great...but I was just glad that nobody noticed me freakin a little there, "What are you, some gangster in the balcony?" I asked myself..... Sounds so cliche right...??? Yeah... Glad that went unnoticed.....OR maybe it didn't....... You guys did talk about today how we are all on camera all the time....Ohhh God.... I hate the thought of being on camera almost as one Fez Marie Whatley...
I wonder just how many dumb things I've done that have been captured for posterity....Shuddderrrr....Like Ron asked, "Who's watching the watchers??!" Yikes....
Ronnie was sayin how in his life he's, "never seen technology roll back," so the constantly being on camera is going to delve further and further into our lives, I dare say.....We all think it's ridiculous and yet it keeps happenin more and more....It's already happening....in stores, and at red lights.....Google Earth.....EZ Pass.....Ron was saying how the credit card companies track what your buying to the point that we may, ourselves, eventually not even realize that the choices we make in purchasing are not necessarilly being made by us...... Oh shit... one thing that had me laughin so hard was how after he said that.... Dave proclaimed, "THAT is why I don't even have a credit card!" to which Ronnie responded, "Nah!! THAT'S not why!" I dunno....
That whole credit card conspiracy was the one that got to me the most though, for some reason...... I have often wondered why we get so many catalogs addressed to us that we have never, and would never buy anything from.... Now that I think of a credit card company tracking my purchases and deciding that these are goods that I'd somehow be lured into buying I am highly insulted! I assume that they are the culprits behind much of my junk mail...... What the hell do I need with so much of this shit!!??!
Not too long ago I got a catalog with all these, "As Seen On TV," type gadgets and contraptions....... I was like, "WHYYY!!!??" I felt annoyed then... but if this is what those companies think that I'd be into.... well now I feel persecuted!! Listen, a certain grandmother of mine was somehow roped into buying one of those home vacuum-sealers from a very similar store.... "Try it out! It's maaaarvelous!!!" she said... So we had all these hoagies and were headin to the beach.... We sealed em right up and put em in the cooler...... Oooooh couldn't wait to rip into them them after a few hours in the sun and surf..... No, no.... that's not how the story ends my friends!! We opened that cooler up to find us some soggy ass sammiches..... Fuck dat shit! Uuuhhh.... Oh yeah.... so what I am sayin is...... I have been gettin all these catalogs addressed to us.... and now I'm pissed that this is what the credit card companies think of me! That I am interested!??
Not even a week ago we got one with all these like, gag gifts in em....There was a trucker's hat the read, "Shit Head," with a disgusting steaming log emblazoned on it...... What!??? That might be the most blatant insult that I have received in years... That I might consider buyin such a thing...???! You send this to MY home!??? Please........ This one company apparently was a big pusher of gimmicky hats....... cause another advertised beauty was this safari lookin hat that had a fan attached to it...... "Stay cool this Summer!!!" it beckoned.....
Oh my .... GOD! What kind of lunatic would order that???? Why do they think I would??!?????!! I'm gonna be some asshole at the beach wearin that hat like... "Heeey... the rest of you jerks roast in the sun.... not me..... I'm keeeepin cooooool......" Oy....but.....they dooo also sell these pencils that you can have our name printed on...so...
Well, once again RnF, you have opened my eyes!
Annnyway....Ron and Fez Show.... It was a beautiful day here... a perfect September day... just like yesterday...Well, one thing... It's always a good day for me that starts off with Rushmore quotes in the opening...... not to mention hearing Bill from John From Cincinnati drops when Earl repeats back shit to Ron that he just said.... So When Ron was talking about it being one of those days that brought you right back to 9/11.......my mind skipped ahead, like trying to anticipate what it was he was gonna say.... Was it that it was that it had been an impeccable cloudless day at first, that reminded him of how that terrible day started off.....Was it a gorgeous, no clouds in the September sky kinda day up there that reminded him...??? Nooope..
It was the screaming masses of people, fleeing.... tearing away from disaster.....again....but this time they were running away from the Maroon 5 show taking place....Holy shit man, I cackled!!! I did not anticipate that! I fuckin laughed so hard at that Maroon 5 tale of horror..... Ron said, "I was running...running hard as I could! And it wasn't me...but someone pushed over Pepper Hicks' mother!!!" Oh dude...... I felt a little bad for laughing at that...a leetle..... but mostly I could understand....I could understand just wanting to escape the abomination!
OK..... As usual, I feel like I have not even barely grazed the surface of all the topics that you guys talked about today which had me so captivated... but I can't have yez sittin here straining your peepers all night..... Have a good weekend amigos! Peace out....
Signed,
kathleen from the bronx :):):)