Published Jun 26, 2009
Have you noticed how many shows Gordon Ramsay has these days? For weeks at a time it seems like we watch nothing but his shows: Kitchen Nightmares, Kitchen Nightmares UK, Hell’s Kitchen, you know the story. The thing is: they’re all good. Gordon Ramsay makes for good TV! And now he’s got a new show (well, new in the US): The F Word, and I seem to be watching that one every night too.
It’s not that I have a man-crush on Gordon (well, maybe on the extra-decisive way he says “done” in his voiceovers for his cooking demos in The F Word); it’s that he makes such good TV. Mostly, it’s that he’s so volcanic and aggro, but it also helps that he can be, you know, almost sweet from time to time. Almost. Anyway, he cares about making the food as much as I care about eating it, which is kind of cool. Or scary. One of the two, anyway.
The F Word is kind of a variety show about food; the Smothers Brothers meet Rachael Ray, maybe. The show is particularly awesome because it includes a continual string of British celebs that neither I nor DJ L’il Bit have ever heard of, but whose personalities are clearly key to the whole segment making sense at all. I like to make up stories about who these people are.1
Every episode also has some people off the street that Ramsay brings in to cook for his restaurant. Apparently the diners in the restaurant don’t have to pay if the food’s not good enough, and the cooks are judged on how many guests pay for their food. The crew with the highest total number of dishes paid for gets to cook at one of Ramsay’s real restaurants. Ramsay’s maitre’d gives the subtotal of dishes paid for after the appetizer, main course, and dessert, and I’m very good at guessing the actual number.
There’s also a plot every season in which Ramsay raises and slaughters and freshly cooks some animals for his restaurant. I actually rather like this bit, since I think most people don’t think often enough of where the food they’re eating comes from. Grossed out by footage of a slaughterhouse? Then be a vegetarian! Either that or respect how amazing it is that some animal or fish gave its life so that you could have an awesome, home-cooked meal.
Now that I’ve talked about death some, it seems a reasonable time to move on to sex. If you’ve seen the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares, you may have noticed that the man takes off his shirt a lot. Not surprising, I guess, since he’s a 6’2”, 210lb former pro soccer2 player. Ramsay knows that both men and women covet him, and seems game enough to use his looks to his advantage. In particular, in case you thought this might be a subtle show or something like that, he uses them in the intro:
Yep, there’s nothing like watching a 40-year-old take off his shirt every time you eat dinner. I’m addicted.
1 The story usually goes “oh, they’re that comedian who was convicted of [gross offence tangentially related to whatever form of flamboyance the celeb shows], guess they’re out of prison and on tour!”
2 Amusingly enough, the use of the term “football” to describe American Football substantially predates the use of the term “football” to describe soccer.