[Sca-cooks] OT, OOP, not truly food-related, but...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Nov 30, 2008, at 10:51 AM, Kingstaste wrote:

> Ok, you are off of creamed herring and gingersnap cookies as a late  
> night
> snack!  Just having Ramsey in a dream would be scary enough, without  
> the
> guns, foaming butter, and Stevenson.  Poor thing, you must be  
> traumatized!
> Come sit over here and watch some nice Rachel Ray for a while,

Talk about waking nightmares!

> that should
> soothe you ;)
> Christianna

No, seriously, I truly believe Ramsay is really a very sweet man who  
plays a mean character on television. Basically he's playing an  
exaggerated caricature of his own professional mentor, Marco Pierre  
White, who is a genuine maniac to work for. Ramsay worked for him as  
sous-chef, prep-cook, dishwasher and all-around slavey, in a six-foot- 
wide kitchen, while White engaged in a multi-year, uninterrupted  
temper tantrum. Mario Batali had that same job for a couple of years  
and said the same thing, like being chained to a hungry Bengal tiger.

Honestly, most of the seemingly terrifying martinet behavior I see  
from Ramsay on television is in fact a perfectly reasonable set of  
expectations, and reaction when the idiots working for him don't meet  
them. I often find myself agreeing with him, and simply wanting to go  
over to some of the contestants and say, "Evidently you don't really  
enjoy this and want to do it for a living, thank you and goodbye."

But apart from his weird fixations on risotto and X Wellington, which  
he seems incapable of leaving off a menu, I find myself agreeing with  
most of his creative decisions, and the videos online of him alone  
with his cameraman in his own kitchen, preparing breakfast in bed for  
his wife, suggest to me he's a  pussycat.

Believe me, I was really surprised when he pulled that gun.

Adamantius






"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,  
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's  
bellies."
			-- Rabbi Israel Salanter