Bourdain on Rachael Ray
From a Bourdain guestblogging stint at rhulman.com:
RACHAEL: Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could--if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better--teach us--and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion--you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….”
UPDATE: From comments on same - a Bourdain quote I was reminded of, along the lines of "Rachael does to food what Hitler did to Poland."
A brief general note: I donated to MPR this pledge cycle, thanks to a speech of Mel Levine's they worked into a midday program. All I know about him is that he's a brain researcher who has some ideas I like about education, and two of his books were attached to one of the pledge packages. Mr. Levine makes a distinction between "fun" and "interesting" in education, and states that kids are trained to think things with value are "fun". Sometimes education is "interesting" but not fun (to wit: Dana Priest's article about Walter Reed Medical Center in today's Washington Post is definitely NOT fun, but it is need-to-know information), and we are failing our kids when we don't challenge them to look at things that aren't necessarily entertaining.
I bring this up in the spirit of blog use for two reasons: first, I find my life these days fulfilling but not particularly compelling. Secondly, I tell stories much better in person, where my ridiculous hand gestures can be put to good use. For these reasons, I will be limiting my personal content to focus more on other sources - mostly for stories that catch my attention or that I think are worthy of sharing with our circle of friends.
RACHAEL: Complain all you want. It’s like railing against the pounding surf. She only grows stronger and more powerful. Her ear-shattering tones louder and louder. We KNOW she can’t cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She’s selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She’s a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that “Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!” Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, “Hell…I could do that. I ain’t gonna…but I could--if I wanted! Now where’s my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?” Where the saintly Julia Child sought to raise expectations, to enlighten us, make us better--teach us--and in fact, did, Rachael uses her strange and terrible powers to narcotize her public with her hypnotic mantra of Yummo and Evoo and Sammys. “You’re doing just fine. You don’t even have to chop an onion--you can buy it already chopped. Aspire to nothing…Just sit there. Have another Triscuit…Sleep….sleep….”
UPDATE: From comments on same - a Bourdain quote I was reminded of, along the lines of "Rachael does to food what Hitler did to Poland."
A brief general note: I donated to MPR this pledge cycle, thanks to a speech of Mel Levine's they worked into a midday program. All I know about him is that he's a brain researcher who has some ideas I like about education, and two of his books were attached to one of the pledge packages. Mr. Levine makes a distinction between "fun" and "interesting" in education, and states that kids are trained to think things with value are "fun". Sometimes education is "interesting" but not fun (to wit: Dana Priest's article about Walter Reed Medical Center in today's Washington Post is definitely NOT fun, but it is need-to-know information), and we are failing our kids when we don't challenge them to look at things that aren't necessarily entertaining.
I bring this up in the spirit of blog use for two reasons: first, I find my life these days fulfilling but not particularly compelling. Secondly, I tell stories much better in person, where my ridiculous hand gestures can be put to good use. For these reasons, I will be limiting my personal content to focus more on other sources - mostly for stories that catch my attention or that I think are worthy of sharing with our circle of friends.