{"id":87,"date":"2008-06-18T22:50:56","date_gmt":"2008-06-19T04:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carrieandben.benzinnecker.com\/blog\/?p=87"},"modified":"2008-06-18T22:50:56","modified_gmt":"2008-06-19T04:50:56","slug":"cooking-and-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hottie-biscotti.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/18\/cooking-and-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking and Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended a cooking class last night at Central Market in Austin.\u00a0 Rebecca Rather, who I have blogged about before, taught the class.\u00a0 On the menu: cold cucumber soup, bread salad with summer vegetables, frosted sugar cookies, molten chocolate cakes, and ginger peach upside down cake.\u00a0 I’m not going to go into detail about the class.\u00a0 The food was tasty, especially the bread salad and peach cake.\u00a0 My reason for writing is to address an issue I started contemplating on my drive back to Waco last night.\u00a0 Cooks, chefs, cooking teachers and cooking entertainers…who is more worthy?\u00a0 More important?\u00a0 More talented?\u00a0 During the class last night, someone mentionned a show on the Food Network and referred to the host as a chef, to which Chef Rather replied, “Well, those people aren’t really chefs.” as she stirred another unknown and unexplained ingredient into the recipe I was suppossed to be “learning” to make.\u00a0 I have been to other classes at Central Market where the chef teaching the class really explained what she was doing, why it was important to cream butter and sugar thoroughly, how to tell how well meat was cooked just by poking it, and how to avoid common cooking problems.\u00a0 The class was entertaining and I ate great food.\u00a0 None of those teachers, however, owned 5 star restaurants, had their own cooking show, and had also written numerous award winning cookbooks.\u00a0 Can anyone be an incredible chef, teacher, entertainer, and business owner all at the same time?\u00a0 Emeril Lagasse entertains and has a celebrity personality.\u00a0 I wonder about his cooking abilities at times.\u00a0 Rebecca Rather has two successful businesses and has written great cookbooks…but she was not the best teacher.\u00a0 Christopher Kimball<\/a> can explain in great detail how to make the perfect poundcake, but I would not want to watch him on tv.\u00a0 Anthony Bordain wrote an entertaining article <\/a>about the Food Network.\u00a0 I agree with some of the ranting, but also think that not all people in the business of food can or should be judged on the same criteria.\u00a0 Ok, so Rachel Ray is annoying and none of her recipes seem too amazing or inventive to me…but she’s incredibly popular, she’s easy to relate to and she’s doing quite well for herself I imagine.\u00a0 Part of me says “What a shame it is that people like that are making tons of money making mediocre food while well trained chefs at small, increbibly delicious and wonderfully innovative restaurants go unnoticed by the majority of the population.”\u00a0 Maybe that’s how it SHOULD be.\u00a0 Maybe fame would ruin those chefs and their restaurants.\u00a0 If those chefs decided to write a cook book and create a line of their food to sell at HEB maybe they would be spreading themselves too thin and the restaurant would no longer be a success.\u00a0 Do I think that the Food Network people are the best chefs out there?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Do I think they should be burned at the stake for making recipes using store bought foods?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 This brings me to the battle between Top Chef and The Next Food Network Star.\u00a0 These shows are completely different.\u00a0 You can’t even really compare them.\u00a0 Top Chef looks for a true CHEF who can really cook.\u00a0 They don’t have to be funny, witty, clever or good looking.\u00a0 Food Network Star is all about personality and presentation…and their food must be edible.\u00a0 In conclusion, people are different, people have different talents and that’s just how it is.\u00a0 Is it fair for people with less cooking talent to make more money than those CIA trained chefs?\u00a0 As I tell my fifth graders…life is not fair.\u00a0 That is my two cents.<\/p>\n