Food TV: Chopped

I'll bet Ted Allen regrets taking this glamour shot...

I'VE NOW BEEN HOME for over a week which means I've managed to indulge in America's favorite pasttimes - shopping, eating and watching TV. As a real tribute to Uncle Sam, I've opted to supersize my partaking of all three. For the third one - watching TV - I've stayed glued to my favorite channel of all time: Food Network. Only in America would they have an entire channel full of food related content. God bless America!

Over the last year, I've been diligently (read: obsessively) following Top Chef Season 6. 16 chefs fighting it out in a kitchen to create meals under intense time pressures complete with sharp knives, people falling and arguments! Riveting stuff. This last season was particularly wonderful and arrogant with such inspired comments like: "Oh, I guess to win, you just need to tell the judges you have cancer" and "The dishes Kevin makes are like the ones I made on my day OFF." However, unlike shows like Top Model and even Project Runway, the majority of the contestants this season were extraordinarly talented and intelligent.

Food skills > sewing skills > having an eating disorder and making bimbo remarks skills.

Michael Voltaggio, the chef who made a comment about Kevin, had received a Michelin star at 26 and Kevin Gillespie, whose restaurant I made a beeline for when I went back to Atlanta, had gotten a full scholarship to MIT prior to pursuing being a chef. Even Eli, the guy who made the crack about cancer, had some pretty serious kitchen skills that called for respect even with that amazingly douchey comment.

Unfortunately for Food Network however, Top Chef airs on Bravo and in an attempt, to compete with it, FN came up with Chopped, a competitive cooking show which centers around four chefs charged with creating a 3 course meal using ingredients that aren't revealed until the beginning of each course. One chef is eliminated or "chopped" per course until the last one standing is given $10,000.

Chopped is terrible.

The final dishes look sloppy and unappetising as if the contents of the pan just threw up onto the plate, the judges make comments that are about as illuminating as dead lightening bugs and what did they do to Ted Allen (the host)? I love that guy and wish fervently for him to be my gay buddy in some sort of alternate daydream universe where I have the body of Heidi Klum and spend my days eating creme brulee. Anyways, Ted Allen is normally so lovely with his dry wit but being on Chopped seems to have sucked him of any sort of personality. It's like the show is hosted by a board... a chopping board. HAHA.

The worst part in Chopped however would have to be the contestants. Every single one is annoying with some strange quirk that is probably meant to make them endearing but in reality just makes them obnoxious. There was the severe-looking vegan chef with thin lips from the pilot episode. I will say it here and now: You cannot be vegan or vegetarian and still command respect as a chef. It's like being a diplomat but religiously avoiding over half the cultures in the world. Ridiculous. Then there's the Cartman sounding chef who brayed his way through episode two. I can't give any more examples because I stopped watching after that. Watching paint dry felt more meaningful.

Food competition fail Food Network.