Hot in the kitchen

I don't give a crap about molecular gastronomy.  I couldn't care less if some asshole figured out a way to spend six hours in a sweaty kitchen turning beets into something that's supposed to taste like chocolate pig testicles.  The fact that you can cook perfect soft boiled eggs every time in some kind of machine doesn't do a thing for me.  I hate all that crap, in fact go ahead and put it in a plastic bag, shove it in a boiler, and sous vide it up your classically trained French chef butt.

Also, Anthony Bourdain? What a insufferable asshole.  Braying, misogynist, overrated, lousy writing asshole.  He's the Guy Fieri of the gourmet food set.

In fact, most all TV food personalities make me stabby.  They make me ever so glad I cut off our cable years ago.  I can't stand most any of them except for one:

Vivian Howard.

How do I love thee Vivian?  Let me count that ways...

I love her because she's not pretentious.  She's not running around pretending to be something she's not.  I love her because she's no longer part of that uber awful New York city food world.  She's real, she's in North Carolina, and she's honest.

And she doesn't cook that pretentious crap that's been anointed as the next big thing out of New York that we're all supposed to fawn over, that's going to make us jizz in our pants, and make us whole once again.  She cooks great looking food that's been grown in her region of the country.  She takes the best of what's around her and she turns it into great looking edible food.  What she does, from what I can tell from her TV show, is art.  It's not rocket science, it's not pretension dressed up as supper, it's good looking edible food that doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

I also love her because she's in my part of the country.  I've been by the city she works and lives in.  I've been to some of the places she goes to buy food.  I've been to the beach towns she's been to.  And one day, I'm going to go to her restaurants and I'm going to eat her food.  I'm not ever going to those places that awful Bourdain raves about.  I'm not going to Emeril's restaurants so he can sweat and grimace over my food.  And no, I'm not going to go to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant because I don't want him berating anyone who's made my supper.  But Vivian's The Chef and the Farmer is within driving distance and one day I'm going to go in her place and she's going to make me something good to eat, something honest, something grown and raised near her.  And I'm going to eat it and be happy.