What's worth watching?

I mentioned yesterday that the only magazine you really need if you're serious about becoming a better and more knowledgeable cook is Cook's Illustrated, which has a companion TV show, America's Test Kitchen, also well worth watching. So let me tell you what else I watch and what I don't. Let's get this out of the way first. I think Emeril is a great self-promoter, but a terrible cook, so I refuse to watch his antics. I used to enjoy Gordon Ramsay, before he went global and saturated the airwaves with however many shows he has on now.
In case you're not familiar with Ramsay, he drew national attention in England, not for his culinary success but for his obnoxious way of treating his staff. He was featured on a program about Britain's worst bosses, filmed secretly in his restaurant being thoroughly unpleasant to the poor unfortunates who worked for him. But, unpleasant as he is, his outbursts stem from a passion for excellence in cooking and a refusal to accept anything less than the best, which is why he is one of England's most succesful restaurant owners and chefs. So he parlayed that notoriety into a fascinating reality show called "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" in which he was invited in to fix restaurants that were in trouble. Ramsay pulls no punches. If you watch this show in England or Canada, the language is quite graphic and crude. Fortunately, perhaps, here in the US most is bleeped, although a lack of familiarity with some English slang does let the occasional obscenity slip through. Earlier this year I was in Canada visiting my brother for a surprise 60th birthday party, and I watched a Ramsay episode there and the uncensored version was a little hard to take. In fact, big brother Tom actually told me to turn it off because he didn't want his wife listening to it. Different personalities, Tom and I.
But, language aside, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was a fascinating program because Ramsay would zero in on what was not working and get in the face of who was not working and tell them exactly what he thought of them, but also what they needed to do if they wanted their restaurant to survive. Some were sullen, some belligerent and some were shamed into restoring their pride and commitment to good cooking. It was painful to watch at times, but Ramsay knows his stuff, knows what works, knows that you fit your menu to your market. This was not about 3 or 4 star dining but about well-prepared food cooked in a clean and well-organised kitchen with a motivated staff.
Then America discovered Ramsay and we had the American version of RKN, and "Hell's Kitchen" and whatever else. Saturation. I stopped watching.
Another chef I enjoy watching is also something of a renegade, the chain-smoking, hard-drinking, foul-mouthed Anthony Bourdain, who is now to be seen mostly on the Travel Channel in a show called "No Reservations". Anthony Bourdain wrote a book several years ago called "Kitchen Confidential", an account of his career as a chef in New York. There was little glamour here, it was drugs sex rock and roll, a sordid behind-the -scenes look at life in a working kitchen. I found myself nodding and smiling a lot while I was reading it: there was a familiar ring to much of it.
So now Anthony Bourdain travels the world on the Travel Channel's dime, experiencing the culture and cuisine of exotic cultures. He is frequently sarcastic, pithy, irreverent, and at times poetic. He never fails to entertain.
And then there's Robert Irvine, another English chef (not the oxymoron it used to be. Or maybe he's Welsh) in "Dinner Impossible". Each episode, with little notice, Robert is given an almost impossible challenge of feeding some large group or other in extremely difficult circumstances with limited time, limited equipment and sometimes no food on site. Irvine always seems to be on the brink of failure, yet always seems to somehow pull it off or come very close. It's actually quite nerve-wracking to watch as he teeters back and forth between good humor and downright irritation, but fascinating nonetheless, though I suspect that it's more interesting to fellow professionals who can appreciate the magnitude of his achievements each week.