CNN has one of the worst food blogs on the net. It’s called 5@5, and they make a top 5 list of some obvious or irrelevant food topic. It’s a stupid name, and a stupid blog. Their posts are usually irritating or pointless, but sometimes they need to be called out. Case in point: This week’s post called “5 things your chef doesn’t want you to know.” Just in case you haven’t read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, (and if you haven’t, please proceed to your local library and grab a copy, it’s a great read) some of this still won’t be new to you. It’s obvious and pedantic.
“5 things your chef doesn’t want you to know”, according to CNN:
1) There’s butter in everything
First of all, bullshit. There is not butter in EVERYTHING and you damn well know it. Got hyperbole? Pushing that aside, are they trying to say that butter makes things delicious? Thanks for the tip, CNN. Also, as Varta pointed out, some things are better than butter, like bacon fat.
2) They aren’t in the kitchen
Rather than go grammar nazi on them, I’m going to assume by “they,” CNN means chefs. Where are they? The roof? The bar? Waiting tables? I venture to speculate that occasionally the chef IS in the kitchen. If you mean on Friday night when it’s busy, I still say you are wrong, CNN. CNN’s example is Mario Batali. Well, no shit, but at most restaurants the chef is not a demi-god. And on a busy night there is a VERY good chance that they are in the kitchen.
3) There’s salt in everything
Again with the hyperbole. CNN loves hyperbole more than Tyrone Biggums loves crack. And thanks for the obvious: Salt is good. I never would have guessed.
4) Your food was cooked by minions
Oh no! Butters' minions are cooking your food!
What the hell is this supposed to mean? We’ve already established that the chef doesn’t cook your food, but who are these mysterious minions? According to CNN, the “minions” they speak of are “migrant workers, would-be criminals, and mindless idiots”. If I were CNN, I would NOT go out to eat any time soon. Ouch. This is quite insulting, from my experience working in restaurants, these minions may include the occasional shady character, but for the most part they worked hard and their only “criminal” activity was smoking weed. A lot of it.
5) Chefs are jerks
Not a jerk
Not nice much, CNN? First of all, there may be a higher jerk to not-jerk ratio among chefs, but way to generalize. Somewhere in Dubuque, Iowa, a chef is genuinely sad that you called him a jerk. And that’s on your conscience, CNN, not mine.
I hoped you learned as little from this as I did. Of course, you already read a food blog far superior to 5@5—Epic Portions. And don’t think that we don’t love you for it.