{"id":419,"date":"2012-09-18T11:22:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T11:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/?p=419"},"modified":"2012-09-27T16:41:37","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T16:41:37","slug":"chopped-on-the-food-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/?p=419","title":{"rendered":"“Chopped” on the Food Network"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When I’m not eating food, thinking about eating food, cooking\u00a0food or writing about food\u00a0I like to watch TV about food.\u00a0 I feel this makes me a well rounded human being.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite food related TV shows\u00a0currently on television\u00a0is Chopped<\/em> on the Food Network.\u00a0 In a nutshell this is a cooking competition program that pits four chefs against each other.\u00a0 They must produce an appetizer, then a main course and then a dessert, each within\u00a0a certain amount of time and featuring ingredients provided by the show’s producers.\u00a0 They are judged by a panel of three judges who eliminate one chef at a time until one is left and wins a cash prize.<\/p>\n

The twist to this show is that they have to use all of the items in their ‘mystery basket’.\u00a0 Now here’s where it gets fun, the mystery items range from the super easy (potatoes) to the truly bizarre (Squid genitalia).\u00a0 Inevitably there is one item that one of the contestants has ever seen or heard of before.\u00a0 Of course one of the judges\u00a0will immediately rattle off what that ingredient is, where it’s grown, how it’s used and how ‘tricky’ it is to incorporate into a meal in just 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

One of the things I love about this show is that even though it’s an hour long I can fast-forward through it and get it down to about 20 minutes (thank you TiVo).\u00a0 I skip through the introduction of the chefs (don’t care) and get right to the opening of the baskets.\u00a0 I love seeing the looks on their faces as they pull out something like\u00a0red-hot candies in the appetizer round.<\/p>\n

I also love watching them frantically cooking while trying to make us think they actually know what they’re doing (“I like my shrimp raw so I chose not to cook them<\/em>“).<\/p>\n

Then they are judged.\u00a0 What can be better than watching others being judged?<\/p>\n

I fast forward again through the contestants discussions of why they had such difficulty with the time limits (duh…you knew what you signed up for) and then fast-forward again to the revealing of the worst dish and the person who has to leave.<\/p>\n

This is where I truly love my TiVo.\u00a0 I love watching this part\u00a0in slow motion.\u00a0 I\u00a0try to pinpoint the exact moment their dreams are shattered!!!<\/p>\n

All things considered it’s probably the most impossible set-up in which anyone can cook but it seems like there is an endless supply of contestants who try.<\/p>\n

My dream…..Chopped with famous chefs!!! Wouldn’t you love to see Ina Garten, Gordon Ramsay, Paula Dean and Rachel Ray all have 20 minutes to create an appetizer out of ahi tuna, pickle relish and root beer?!?!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I’m not eating food, thinking about eating food, cooking\u00a0food or writing about food\u00a0I like to watch TV about food.\u00a0 I feel this makes me a well rounded human being. One of my favorite food related TV shows\u00a0currently on television\u00a0is Continue reading “Chopped” on the Food Network<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,162,163,164,161,167,166,168],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodietales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}