After eviscerating Guy Fieri last night, I feel it is necessary to speak positively about something this evening. And not Hoegaarden or bacon or salsa or anything obvious. Tonight, a brief word about the Cooking Channel, specifically the four o’clock hour.
Readers of this blog know full well that that same time block on Food Network is damn close to the hour of death. I’ve got nothing against Sunny Anderson other than the fact that I find her cooking show boring. Gina Neely has more personality in one of her fingernails. Giada at 4:30 is a true nightmare, a half hour of her is bad enough. Add to this the fact that Anne Burrell and Guy Fieri precede the four o’clock hour and you might need to add a vomitorium to your living room.
Cooking Channel to the rescue. At 4pm we have the lovely, talented, and lovely (did I say that twice?) Nigella Lawson, and at 4:30 we have the lovely and criminally underutilized Aida Mollenkamp. For a man in his thirties, there is more to drool over in this hour than food.
Nigella
Nigella is quite the saucy lass, lots of coquettish looks to the camera while she makes fig whateveradoo. Her recipes are hit and miss, but her personality is captivating. And at the end of her show she sultrily sneaks to the kitchen and prepares what appears to be a midnight snack. That my friends, is a real woman. No need to obnoxiously flash cleavage in my face, make up words like yumm-o, or talk about window treatments.
Aida
At 4:30, Aida takes over, and here is where the recipes come alive. The food she makes strikes directly at a man’s heart. She’ll stuff a raw chicken with marinade, cook up burgers with the best of them, and make side dishes that people actually want to eat, instead of tomato and cucumber salad. How Food Network allows her to languish on Cooking Channel and at the same time promote Anne Burrell and Alex Guarnaschelli completely boggles the mind.
So there it is, EP readers. I promised to be nice, and for the most part I was. This isn’t just me gushing about two attractive females, these ladies can cook, and I for one am glad that Cooking Channel exists so I can ignore FN and watch actual talent in the kitchen.