You've Been Chopped!

I wonder who came up with the premise behind the show "Chopped?"  It is one of my favorite cooking shows EVER, but who thought of this?  It's the dessert round, Chefs.  Open your baskets.  Here are your four mystery ingredients:  purple yam jam, liver-flavored cat treats, children's gummy vitamins and duck feet.  Make a dessert!  Yes, I am exaggerating, but I am not dipping very far into the exaggeration pool here!  (By the way, we really do have purple yam jam in our pantry since Better Half was raised on it.)

I never miss this show.  The chefs are insanely talented.  They can make anything into something spectacular.  What I don't like is what I refer to as the human error gross out factor.  There are times I promise I will never eat in a restaurant again.  For a foodie like me, that's a bold statement.  However, these contestants are supposed to be some of the finest chefs and restaurateurs in the country and they have some pretty bad manners. 

Yes, they can blame the "clock" for their bad decisions, but come on already!  How many times have I seen them cut them selves with the knife and continue to handle the food until someone calls them out for it?  Or they use the same spoon or even their finger to double dip over and over again to taste the food.  I don't want to see that spoon go from their mouth back into the pot.  But mostly, the thing that gets me is the inevitable sweat factor.  I am often heard yelling at my TV with a loud, "Ewwww, you are sweating right off your nose into the bowl!"  Yuck!  I love restaurants, but if these top chefs are behaving that badly and while on camera, who's making my value meal?

I applaud them for their creativity though.  I know I couldn't work under those conditions.  After all, I don't even know what half of those ingredients are.  I have enough trouble bringing a family dinner together when I haven't been to the grocery store in a week.

My Ode to "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives"

So it is no secret that I could watch the Food Network 24 hours a day.  I record more shows on that network than on any other.  I love to watch the shows that teach, the ones that compete and the ones that travel.  No show floats my boat more than "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives!"

I love this show.  Maybe I can’t miss an episode because I love food or maybe it is because, after being a full-time care giver for three years, I have barely left my home in a long time.  My friends know if they want to see me, they usually need to come to my table for dinner.  So that would explain my fascination with this show.  I live vicariously!

Guy Fieri takes me all over the country so I can watch chefs/cooks/diner owners making fabulously good looking meals, mostly devoid of nutritional value.  How delicious!  I mean ... how unhealthy!  Yes, that's what I meant.  Moving on. 

I can watch with anticipation as someone else samples these decadent dishes and tells how gooey and sinful they taste.  Wait, I don’t think I’m thrilled with that part.  I’d much rather be eating them myself … but Guy hasn’t asked me to travel the country as his official taster yet.   (Guy -- call me!)

Each time I watch this show, I have the same two thoughts:  1) Why is it most of these places are not within driving distance of me; and 2) Why don’t I own a diner?  I guess the answer to the first question is, because I would weigh 5,000 pounds.  The answer to the second, I don’t have what it takes!   I work up a tired sweat just trying to feed this family of mine at dinnertime!  Not sweat like some of the chefs who compete on "Chopped" and make me never, ever want to eat in a restaurant again.  Just ordinary people tired sweat. 

I don’t know how these amazing cooks work in these small, hot kitchens surrounded by steaming surfaces for 12 to 20 hours a day.  I couldn't do it.  I have to plan ahead.  I don’t need to be working in that environment when I start having hot flashes!  I’m just saying.

So last night, I took my newly-found gravy making skills and did my own homage to diners here at the old homestead.  I decided to whip up a batch of biscuits with sausage gravy, another of my son's favorites.

Have I mentioned that I love breakfast food, especially at dinnertime?  When I was a teenager and my dad worked nights, my mother and I would often make breakfast for dinner and talk for hours about our lives.  I love memories of my mom.

But I digress.

Back to last night.  I started by getting the biscuits in the oven using my tried and true three-step recipe.  First I took the canister of biscuits from the fridge.  Then, I carefully (and I do mean carefully, this is vital) unwrapped the foil label.  Thirdly, I jumped and screamed like a little girl when it went pop!  Anyway, it wasn't like I was trying to impress the fam with my biscuits.  It was all about the gravy.

My new skills for roux basics paid off again.  I kept that pan low and slow.  There was a moment, after adding the milk to the hot roux and sausage, that I thought it would never thicken and come together, but amazingly IT DID!  A pot of creamy, non-flour tasting, delicious gravy.  My son was delighted.  Again, Mom made a gravy that didn't taste like it had just come off a Kindergarten pasting project!

My diner-fix was fixed!  So for now, I will go back to my TiVo and live vicariously through others ... maybe pick up a meal idea or two (or three or four) from watching Guy and his Camaro hunting down and sampling high caloric meals.  But I am so jealous.  I’m just saying.