[Sca-cooks] Wow. Robert Irvine exposed

Susan Fox selene at earthlink.net
Wed Feb 20 11:18:11 PST 2008


Michael Gunter wrote:
>> I can't address the question of a quantified skill set for Flay, but > I've seen him cook with my own eyes, so it appears he's at least > capable of turning out a meal when required.
>>     
Within his own limited repertoire, I suppose.  But at least he never 
lied about it.  On the contrary, his "I am what I am" attitude is 
refreshing in the snobby food world.
>  
>
> That seems to be the actions of people who are given something
> they feel deep down they never earned or don't deserve. I've seen
> it in the SCA many times. The knight who isn't that great a fighter
> or the duke who cheated his way through Crown always seem to
> be the people who have the biggest coronets or constantly throw
> the fact of their rank and how they should be respeced in peoples'
> faces the most.
>   
I'd like to see you distinguish between the Innately Humble and the 
Actually Undeserving here.  I still boggle that they let me play with 
the cool kids and I expect the Pelicans to make me do their homework any 
day now.
>  
> The problem that I, and it seems many people have with Flay, is
> the coddling FoodNetwork gives him, his smug attitude even when
> he is often exposed in being a hack and his total lack of imagination
> when cooking. I'm tired of Flay given softball ingredients on Iron
> Chef and judges who must have taken lessons in judging from East
> Germany. 
>   
ON the other hand, in blind tastings such as they use in THROWDOWN, he 
usually gets his hiney handed to him.  'Nuff said.
>  
> At least Rachel Ray remains humble on the aspect that she isn't 
> a real chef and seems to hold people who have made it in a bit of
> awe. She's just a foodie who made good. (And, no, I don't like Rachel
> Ray either.)
>   
Rachel's family has run a resort [and at some point, a Howard Johnson's] 
in Upstate New York for decades.  If she went to cooking school, it was 
the school of hard knocks.  Maybe that Howard Johnson's background shows 
in her broad-appeal, low-difficulty cooking show, but it serves its 
purpose.  You and I are just not her target audience.

>> I agree that the word "chef" has become bandied about rather liberally
>> lately from the meaning of a true chef. Nowadays it seems that
>> anyone who graduates from the spate of cooking schools that have
>> sprung up around the country can be called a chef.
>>     
Or not.  They call me Chef Selene in the local SCA, despite my 
protestations of lack of paperwork to that effect.

So where did Irvine buy his cookery degree?  I'd love to have a 
five-star pigskin, just for grins and giggles.

Selene


More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list