Certainly the last in a very long while.It's just that today, when we have a new and slightly expanded (that SuperSize business is false advertising; someone alert the Federal Trade Commission) episode of Top Chef, we were more than ever struck by Bravo's reasoning in inviting Anthony Bourdain to be a guest judge, when the piece we're about to quote makes clear his utter contempt for the entire project and mission of Top Chef itself.
So, once again from The Nasty Bits, heeeeeere's Tony:
First of all, what is a ‘celebrity chef’? Well, it’s a celebrity—meaning well known, bordering on famous—who is, or was at one time, a chef. This definition would exclude amateurs, neophyte cooks, and sous-chefs plucked off the chorus line by TV producers and elevated through the magic of television to ‘chef’ status. If you’re a comely young fry cook with an adorably boyish forelock and you get yanked into a TV studio, given the moniker of, say, the Adenoidal Chef, and suddenly housewives in seventeen countries are squirming in their caftans while you make green curry, that doesn’t make you a chef.Meow! Where does that leave, for example, sous-chef Elia Aboumrad, line cook Ilan Hall, and line cook Michael Midgley? Well, we suppose Bravo wanted the entertainment value from Bourdain's acid quips, which it got, but what was Bourdain getting out of it? Did his contempt for the whole enterprise manifest itself in the way he handled his guest-judging stint? Or was he just being his usual, self-confessed television whore, principles be damned?
4 comments:
happy new year
damn, that was hateful. who is this guy, never heard of him before . . . no shit, meow.
Lord, how I love a caustic wit. But this might be a wee bit over the top.
Bourdain's always like that. I'm not sure why he was so fascinated Mike's twice baked potato with a shrimp on it but hey he's a foodie, what do I know.
Post a Comment