Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I've become so disillusioned with so many television shows over the past year or two. So many favorites have let me down, and hard. It's difficult when you've become invested in a character and he gets killed off, or a plotline suddenly veers off unexpectedly and "jumps the shark." Or even a nightly lineup gets shuffled around, and there goes "Destination Television!" Sometimes, the network simply cancels a show right out from under you. It's bitter, so bitter. But this time, I have to do all the dirty work myself. I have to break up with someone who I used to enjoy spending time with. I liked her down-to-earth chatter and her no-nonsense but still good food. I'd come home from school, change into my comfies, grab something to drink, and plop on the couch and spend a half hour with down-home Butter Goddess, Paula Deen.

But not anymore.

Now Miss Paula has joined the ranks of Giada DeLaurentiis and Sandra Lee as my Armageddon Brigade of Kitchen Idiots. I cannot stand to watch any of them, even to sit and constantly criticize, snipe, harp at, and malign them as they "cook."

Here, therefore, is my open Dear Paula Breakup Letter to Miss Deen. Sigh.

Dear Miss Paula,

Believe me, it pains me deeply to have to write you this letter. For years, I watched you faithfully and enjoyed you immensely. How fearlessly you tossed stick after stick of butter into every recipe! How your Holy Trinity remained Butter, Mayonnaise, and Canned Creamed Soups despite our nation's Obesity Epidemic. I defended your folksy southern pronunciations: "spatchler" for spatula; "awl" for oil. I even overlooked your use of "cheese" as a verb, as in "Y'all can wait for the last fifteen minutes to cheese your casserole", meaning "to top with cheese." I simply grinned indulgently when you constantly looked obliviously into the camera as you massaged oil into a cut of pork and said rapturously, "Y'all know how I like to rub my meat." I simply ignored your use of the term "tin foil" even though foil has not been made of tin for...well, EVER.

But when your popularity began to soar in the past couple of years, something happened. You began to market your Countrified Schtick Personality. And magnify it. Suddenly, your accent became more pronounced. Down-Home Expressions peppered your commentary like Cajun seasoning. You got another show, Paula's Party, and on it you acted like a Saturday Night Live actor doing an extreme caricature of you. On crack. And Spanish Fly.

And then there was the crap you started making on your regular show.

I think one recipe says it all: Cheesy Ham and Banana Casserole. Good Heavens. The title alone is gut-wrenching, but the ingredient list (deli ham, bananas, bacon, cheese, potato chips, and, for that little je ne sais quois, nutmeg) is enough to set anyone off on a vegan and Luddite lifestyle. Urk.
At the risk of losing readers--and my own gastric wellbeing--here is a picture:
What were you thinking? Were you hoping for instant inclusion in The Gallery of Regrettable Food?

In any case, it's over between us. I can't have any self-respect and go on watching you, and I can't have any love for food and go on watching what you do to it. Goodbye, Paula Deen, goodbye.

Moving on to Anne Burrell,

Nance

The Nance Show

It is almost time for the cable bill to come, and that means it is almost time for Rick to sigh heavily and say to Jared, Sam, and me, "This is ridiculous. This much just to watch television?!" Naturally, that is our cue to defend our Pet Channels so that the Budgetary Axe of Death does not fall:

Jared: Life without ESPN, ESPN2, or FSNOhio is not a life I want to live. Are you really prepared to have that on your conscience?
Me: I have to have the Food Network. We've gone over this a hundred times.
Sam: What's this now?

Shortly after that, I also remind him that the cable bill also represents our internet connection. He mumbles something from behind his laptop and proceeds to ignore us for the rest of the evening. He forgets that the majority of his surfing and eventual stopping takes place on cable-provided programming, too. His television watching is just not nearly as interactive as mine is; therefore, it is quieter and not as noticeable.

I am, by nature, a chatty individual, and the fact that the television is supposedly a one-way entertainment device doesn't deter me in the least. I'm quite free with my comments, advice, and dialogue along with the program on the tv. As a matter of fact, Jared thinks I should have my own show something along the lines of Mystery Science Theater 3000, only with a cooking format.

Are you familiar with MST3K? It was a silly show hosted by a human and three robots who sat and watched really awful movies and kept up a running commentary--usually witty and critical--during the films. Sometimes they'd do alternative dialogue, too.

Well, instead of watching bad films, I'd watch the cooking shows of Food Network "stars" that I really dislike. I'd criticize and generally eviscerate them as they cooked, then do my own recipes after their segments. It wouldn't be hard. I already do it at home. There's nothing I like better after a hard day at school than coming home, changing out of my Mrs. D. clothes, kicking back on the couch with Jared and watching Everyday Italian with Giada de Laurentiis, who I simply cannot tolerate as a cook. She is, in a word, terrible. I unwind from my day by ripping her apart, from the fact that she cannot accurately estimate nor measure to her constant use of the word "perfect" and description of every single herb as "lemony." She is also the only Italian I know who refuses to cook generously or even enough. Her guests must have to stop at McDonald's on the way home from dinner at her house.

Anyway, after I got done blasting Giada (or Emeril or Tyler or whoever was on the hotseat that day--but never Paula Deen, NEVER MISS PAULA!) I would then cook a better and Nancer version of whatever dish they had completely screwed up.

Every so often, I might mix it up and have a segment on of the Food Network people I like. Like Alton Brown or Paula Deen or maybe one or two segments that I can tolerate of Michael Chiarello--when he's not saying the word "caramelize" every three seconds and demanding that we see him as a raging heterosexual. But I'd have to see how it goes.

And I'd never have a guest on. Because they might want to talk, too. And I'm just not up for that.

Last year on Dept of Nance: Guilty Pleasures