Chopped: The Best Worst Show Going or I Take Life One Panna Cotta at a Time

In a former life, where I was a wild, uncontrollable bachelor, TV was pretty standard. The only things a single Bloggin Hood watched were sports, prestige TV, like Breaking Bad and the Wire, and the occasional Hallmark move. Don’t laugh – there’s more deaths in the typical Hallmark movie than the entirety of the Sopranos. Of course, that’s not including the Christmas movies. Those are blood baths.

“But what about Ducktales?” the dumber, less attractive readers asks. Of course Ducktales counts as prestige TV as all intelligent readers would know. Don’t worry, we’ll be talking about this in a future blog, especially the revival of a historic, legendary character. Let’s call him D Duck, no, Darkwing D to keep that secret under wraps.

Now a domesticated male, the TV shows I watch are a bit different. I still watch the sports I want to see, though the prestige series have fallen off. I just finished Veep this week (pretty good), plan on watching Succession, and I did watch Game of Thrones. Feel free to insert your own curse words to describe that ending. ¹* However, with Maid Megan in my life, I’ve also been introduced to HDTV and the Food network. I have no shame in any of these, as most domesticated males are watching these channels too. Don’t lie. I know what’s on your DVRs. I’ve seen it.

Of the two, HGTV is significantly worse. I’m not going to pretend than the Food Network is a wealth of diverse content, but HGTV is either fixing a house or buying a house. There is no in between. All of the shows blend together, and the personalities of the hosts range from semi interesting, to semi dull. I haven’t actually seen anyone who is outright boring, but there’s no Noah Cappe’s on HGTV. Then again, if Noah Cappe watched paint dry and excitedly commented on it with bad puns, I’d watch weekly.

The only standout HGTV show are the ones where a couple is trying to buy a house and has three choices. Usually the couple will have some odd careers but still have enough money to make a down payment on a house. For example one of the pair will be a professional glue maker while the other once sniffed freshly baked bread at a bakery, yet their budget will be $4.3 million. I suspect the show fails to mention their clientele are all lottery winners or heirs to fortunes. So yeah, I guess by standout show, I meant rage inducing. I’d set the over/under at remotes through TVs at 19.5 nationwide**²

While there’s really only one topic the Food Network can focus on, at least there’s more variety in the entertainment produced. In essence, food shows fall into one of three categories

1). Learning – I assume this is why the Food Network was created in the first place. These shows are typically 30 minutes and feature a chef or former celebrity who teaches you how t make things. What used to be a prestigious honor for a chef, rewarded for years of hard work, has now become a way for washed up, has beens to pretend to know how to cook. A few examples of “celebrities” who have cooking shows include Rev Run from Run DMC, Kelly Kapowski of Saved By the Bell,***³ and one of the sisters from Sister-Sister. Imagine being a world class chef and losing out on a cooking show because the food network wanted to give one to Joe Jonas? It’ll be the chef who be stumbling out of the bars going forward****⁴.

The difficulty of the meals prepared strictly depends on who is the chef. If you’re watching a has been celebrity, it’s going to be embarrassingly easy. Honestly, the back of a box could tell you how to do this, and it’ll be more efficiently. I’ve seen Rev Run heat up a Hungry Man dinner on his show several times. It’s not great.

If you’re watching an actual chef, you might be in trouble. Likely angered by the celebs taking the good time slots to make stove top stuffing for 30 minutes, these chefs make dishes insanely complex. There’s no chance you can recreate these without a culinary background. I don’t blame them for showing off, but maybe dumb it down a bit?

There is no between. Either it’s so simple, a caveman can do it, or you need a PHD in chemistry to understand what’s going on.

2). Free advertisement – If a good network isn’t airing cooking shows, they shift to shows about eating. Many of the shows highlight restaurants where a celebrity chef or a host will go, talk to a cook, kind of see how it’s made (most of the actual important steps are skipped to keep it a secret) and then eat. Seems simple, right?

What’s really going on here is the restaurant gets free advertisements, usually because they know the host/chef or knows somebody at the network. By just feeding a few people, they get to be on television. Anyone who passes by the restaurant and visit that city will try the place. This spikes the business. It’s a no brainer for any restaurant.

This makes even more sense for a chef host, who avoids having to do any real cooking, gets to travel and eats for free. That’s a sweet gig. Maybe losing their shows to celebrities isn’t so bad after all. Come on chefs, let the celebs do the cooking, or at least microwaving while you eat for free. Except for Bobby Flay cause he’s a jerk.

Technically, Carvinal eats falls is this category, but I see it more as an educational show. Cappe is letting us know exactly where not to go when finding yourself at a fair or carvinal in need of food. What hasn’t that man done for society?

3). Guy Fieri – This makes up roughly 40% of Food Network Programming. Fieri is the rare show that combines copious amount of hair gel with outdated slang. Many different cuisines nationwide can be classified as outrageous, out of bounds, killer and slamming. I’m not sure what decade his vocabulary belongs in, but it’s not part of this millennium.

Fieri’s main show is part of the free advertisement class, but he also has Guy’s Ranch Kitchen – a show where Guy critiques other chef’s cooking in his home while he does nothing, and Guy’s Grocery Games, a worse version of Supermarket Sweep combined with iffy cooking. Don’t take that a backhanded compliment, Supermarket Sweep is significantly worse than you remember. Trust me on that – we’ll be discussing it soon.

My main issue with Fieri is how is he considered a chef? I’ve never seen him cook on any of his plethora of shows, and quite honestly, I doubt he could even master Rev Run’s “Hungry Man Surprise”. Does he have the capacity to cook? If he’s just a celebrity host, which is the best case scenario, just call him that. I have a crazy idea – give Fieri his own 30 minute cooking show and let’s bring this full circle.

But we’re not here to talk about Guy Fieri, allegedly. We’re here to touch on the one distinct type of programming that the Food Network has that differently themselves from other Home and Garden networks– the game show. While Guy’s grocery games is a divertive of better shows, one that it steals from is Chopped, a flagship for the channel and surprisingly watchable. It’s easy to see how Chopped works. It combines the monotony of cooking by providing nonsensical ingredients and created drama via a manually enforced time limit.

Wait, this is watchable?

The successful game shows of all time combine elements of live trivia pursuit, pure luck, or shameless product placement. Chopped actually avoids these tropes (with a little product placement) and rewards skill, nearly unheard of in the genre. Don’t misunderstand me, Chopped is watchable, even entertaining, but it’s not exactly good. I can rate it good for a game show, but that’s not a high bar. There are several, huge flaws with the concept that stick out like a sore thumb. Don’t worry, if you a fan of the show, I will now dissect it and probably make you lose interest in the program. You’re Welcome.

Issue 1 – Contestants

In wrestling, video packages are a huge component of building up a competitor or match. Sometimes, they’re used to help debut a new wrestler, or hype the return of another one. Sometimes they will piece together moments to create buzz for a match. Say what you will about wrestling, and boy there’s a lot to say, but these video packages are pretty good.

Chopped also used these packages, except they frigging suck. Each of the four competitors get introduced in a 45 second video where they explain their history with cooking, a brief fact about them and some shots at their restaurant or home depending on their job. Not only do we get nothing from these, the repetitiveness and phoniness makes me hate the contestants from the start. Seriously, if you watch the first 8 minutes of chopped, you’ll hate 3 of the 4 entrants almost immediately. Now if you’re in the wrestling business, having a villain is great. But if you’re on a game show and all of your competitors are hated? Yeah that’s not good.

Of course, it’s not al the video packages’ fault. A lot of the blame falls on the competitors. There’s not much variety in these contestants. In fact, they all kind of fit a mold. Fitting for cooking, but bad for television. The basic list of potential competitors include:

– The chef who owns his own restaurant and wants everyone to know it. Typically he’s cocky as anything and doesn’t take criticism well. He is the contestant who is most likely to undercook a chicken breast and blame the pans. While it’s not always the case, this competitor usually sucks at cooking. They probably spend too long yelling at their staff to stay sharp in the kitchen

– A sous chef who wants to prove themselves. Sometimes, they are cocky, but sometimes it’s more determined. They always need the money to start their own restaurant. It’s 50-50 if they are the likeable person or insufferable.

– An owner of a shack or a food truck. These competitors always want to open up a full restaurant. Often, they can only cook a handful of things well, devastating in a competition revolving around random ingredients. Occasionally they break through, but usually it’s a lot of heavily questionable offerings. Ever see a fried cup of milk? This is your best chance.

– The parent who has no ties to the food industry. He or she is doing this for their kids and claims to have no cooking background. Of course, having a culinary degree and thirty years of experience doesn’t count to them. They’re the underdogs. This competitor often wins and usually has the audiences support, even if they’re actually a huge liar.

– The vegetarian/vegan who lets you know that about their dietary restrictions. Naturally, these competitors are meat based. The disgusted competitors complain the entire time, then whine when they lose because they overcooked beef by 28 minutes. I saw one episode that featured a raw vegan. Doesn’t they mean she doesn’t eat cooked food? Why did you go on chopped? These people have no business complaining but do so anyway. Then again, they have no business telling you they are vegetarian/vegan for the 900th time, but it’s going to happen.

– Every single competition has a sob story contestant. These can range from legitimately sad (death of a loved one) or dumb (my pet parrot ran away when I was 6). Whenever you hear the sob story in the intro, it will repeat during judging, usually verbatim. I don’t think anyone who has cried has ever been eliminated in the same round.

– Every once in a while, you’ll be blessed by a cook with no clue what’s going on. He or she is legit clueless in the kitchen, putting the has been celebrity style to shame. Usually their explanations involve a lot of shrugging and their choices are borderline reckless. The judges are at risk of being poisoned. Oh I love it. I cheer these contestants on whole heartedly. This is like the 3rd string QB coming in and throwing horrific interception after interception, but the team somehow wins. So, nowhere near Luke Falk “songs” tanking the Jets hopes in 2019 (Hey Darnold, welcome back). There’s your sob story.

There’s also the celebrity episodes, but if you’re watching that, you expect a train wreck. My favorite celebrity appearance is when Coolio cheated, was called out for it, was eliminated, and then blamed Lou Diamond Phillips. This actually happened. Imagine, the artist of classics such as Ganstas Paradise and The Keenan and Kel theme song falling from grace like this. What a damn shame.

Issue 2 – Format

Chopped’s format is it’s selling point. Anyone can make a cooking show. Chopped forces the chefs to use 4 ingredients found in their baskets. Rarely, if ever, do these ingredients go together. The competition should highlight creativity and skill. Usually, it just shows off bull shit.

Look, I’m all about the creativity some of these chefs use, but there’s rounds where the competitors are doomed to fail. What on earth can people do when given a meat they never heard of? I mean, you might have no idea how long to cook it, or if it needs to be all the way through. Chopped loves Sweetbreads, some type of fowl and not a dessert loaf as I always think. If I received sweetbreads in my basket, I’d cook it to black and tell Geoffrey Zakarian I hope he chokes on it. Seriously, I don’t mind weird ingredients, but maybe lay off the rare proteins. I always thought the episode where the chefs had to cook a elephant tusk and whole dolphin was in poor taste.***** ⁵

Of course this doesn’t excuse dumb ass ingredients. Sure, head cheese exists, but I don’t want to look at it, let alone cook with it. Blood sausage is best left in the UK, and not part of my night viewing. And I swear, whatever psychopath put baby corn in a basket deserves a long stay in Hell. That sick bastard. There’s children watching.

While the format should reward creatively, it also needs to be punished. People go over the top to deliver standout dishes, but often forget it needs to be edible. My favorite example comes from a pizza episode. One of the chefs decided to make a soup, passionately claiming that he didn’t believe pizza was defined by dough, cheese and sauce. No, actually, that incorrect. Pizza is defined by those three things. Dumbass somehow survived the round, but failed to advance when he tried making a pizza. Go figure.

Dessert is where creatively is lost. Every competitor tries to make ice cream, some sort of gross bread pudding or a panna cotta. I still don’t have a clue what the last thing is, but chefs love trying to make it. Sadly, it takes 4 hours to complete and the competitors only have 45 minutes for the dessert round. Nobody has successful made panna cotta, possible outside of Chopped, yet everybody tries. Chefs are stubborn bastards, aren’t they?

I have no issues with the 3 rounds of eliminations. My biggest issue, arguably more than the inclusion of baby corn (doubtful) is the horrific editing. Look, I get there’s a time limit. That’s half of the point. But I don’t need my intelligence insulted by believing none of the competitors will finish on time. Sure, maybe the schmuck who’s never used a pot who got entered due to a clerical error, but the real chefs? They can cook things in 30-45 minutes. It’s obviously filmed to look more frantic. I get it, drama sells, but add more clueless cooks, and we’re all good.

Also, how many times do people need to forget ingredients? It happens every third episode. I get that this isn’t easy, but everyone starts by planning their meal. Shouldn’t you remember the 4 required ingredients without much issue? Of course, I once accidentally boiled taco meat while following directions, but I’m not going on Chopped. Considering most of these contestants somehow survive to the next round, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was created for added drama. On that note, how is missing an ingredient not an automatic KO? This would be like entering the Boston Marathon and using a bike because you forgot one of the rules. It’s just dumb.

The ending is always predictable. The best chef almost always makes a mistake in the second round and it leaves the cocky asshole vs either the sob story or the family chef. The family chef wins because the asshole tries to make a panna cotta/ baked Alaska. Occasionally the asshole wins because he can actually back it up. Once a season, the schmuck wins because the judges like eating deep fried filet mignon in spicy gummy bear reduction. I mean, come on judges! He didn’t even use a bachamel or season the cast iron!

Were… were those cooking terms? I think those were cooking terms.

Issue 3 – Judges

Speaking of judges, almost all of the suck, with one exception. Alex Guarnashelli, better known as Homie, is the best. Not only does she tell it how it is, she called somebody homie before. Nobody could reach her level unless Michael Conforto and Christine Michael were guest judges. Unfortunately, this isn’t a Homie centered show, so other judges have to be involved. Most are harmless, but my most hated list includes:

Scott Conard – This judge gets his day job and night job confused, constantly unbuttoning his shirt like he’s about to dance around a poll. I mean, settle down dude. Typically starting with a fully buttoned shirt, Food Network might need to get a censor bar by the final round. Next time he’s on an episode, count the undone buttons each round. It’s shocking.

Blonde, stressed woman – Yeah I don’t know her name, and Bloggin Hood rants sure aren’t about research. She is the physical manifestation of anxiety. Often screaming, or covering her month due to the time, this woman would sweat bullets with 15 minutes to go. She seems to be think she’s the one competing for $10,000 instead of the rest.

Geoffrey Zakarian –

Ah, here he is. Arguably worse than Bobby Flay, no man is more pompous than Big Z. It seems like he models his life about Roger Sterling, the Mad Men character. In fact, Lil Jon and I have dubbed him fake Roger Sterling for a while. He yearns to be in the 1960s, where he’d have a prayer to be cool. Spoiler alert, he wouldn’t be cool then, and he sure as Hell isnt now.

When everyone has something nice to say, Fake Roger Sterling bashes the food. If everyone hates it, he’ll pile on, like Kobe padding his stats at the end of his career. The man has never said a positive thing, sometimes picking the pettiest company’s out. His favorite is saying something needs more salt. With Fake Roger Sterling around, that’s certainly not true. On other shows, the only thing he’ll make is cocktails. I think he cooks nearly as little as Guy Fieri. With the amount of drinking he does, he might really be trying to revive Mad Men. However, I don’t think every morning show needs a breakfast cocktail. That’s just me though. You do you big Z. Nobody else is.

Occasional, the show features a guest judge to boost ratings. Usually it’s a actress or model to boost male viewership. Sorry Scott, your sex appeal wasn’t enough. I remember they had Jessica Alba on as a judge once. What a shameless tactic for male ratings. I’ve watched that episode 7 times, and I’ve never felt so belittled. I’ll have to watch again to confirm my rage.
Maybe twice.

Issue 4 – Knock Offs

Probably the most egregious issue with Chopped is the wealth of knock off shows it created. The Food Network quickly realized it could capitalize on its only successful show to not feature Fieri since Emerald captured a nation by saying bam a bunch of time. These rip offs get thrown ok at the oddest hours of the day.

Cutthroat Kitchen – Hosted by Alton Brown, the gimmick changes from being 4 basket ingredients, to different obstacles the chefs may encounter. Contestants can win up to $25,000, but can bid on handicaps to give to rival chefs from their prize pool. Truthfully, it’s a unique concept and it keeps the prize pool down. The show actually has normal dishes for the contestants to make, and they have access to all ingredients. Unless of course, they have been handicapped. It’s actually not a bad concept and Alton Brown is a significantly more entertaining host than you’re average game show has. Despite being derivative, this is objectively a more interesting show. My only real complaint is how often contestants forget key ingredients in dishes when they have no handicaps. Or how often a cocky professional chef loses to a blindfolded mother of 7 who has to use a pound of dirt in her chicken parm. I guess some things never change.

Cooks VS Cons – On this “TV show”, Fake Roger Sterling invites two professional chefs and two “average Joes” in a two round competition. Usually the rounds include a specific dish, and then a wild card round, where you get to make whatever you want expect you have to include a certain ingredient. So basically this is just a significantly worse version of Chopped. The twist in every episode is one of the “cons” can actually cook. Wow! So like every episode of chopped except without the creativity. The judges on this show are truly bottom of the barrel and it’s just poor. Of course the worst issue here is that Fake Roger Sterling got his own show. He starts episodes reciting pretentious bullshit, which tries to be Shakespeare, but comes off as deep as a 13 year olds instagram. Stick to the booze Geoff.

Bakers vs Fakers – Somehow, Cooks Vs cons got a knock off, hosting by the cake boss. I saw the cake boss in jersey once at a bar. He waved a $100 to get the attention of the wait staff to order a coors light. So needless to say, I’ve never seen an episode of this show cause it has to be horrific, but if I’m a life or death situation and need a douche, at least I know where I can find one.

Despite the plethora of issues, Chopped is always watchable. If you’re forced to watch a show from the home improvement or cooking collection, this is high up on the list. I don’t know if that’s actually a compliment. At least when you watch, you can get a laugh when a chef loses for forgetting to cook his food, and then some jackass loses to a clueless gambler in the dessert round via soup like panna cotta, unless of course, it is a soup. Who could ever know?

1. *I went with atrocity of the senses.
2. **Give me the push as the 20th person throws the remote batteries instead of the whole thing.
3. ***Yes, I know that’s not her real name, but she’s Kelly Kapowski. Also, if she got her show 15 years early, the 18-49 male demographic would have been locked in on the Food Network.
4. ****If I hear that Jonas brothers song one more time, I’m going to go insane. I don’t even listen to the radio much – literally just when I’m driving, which is once or twice a week, and when I’m changing at the gym. That’s not a lot of time. I’d say I still hear it 5 times a week. It’s a conspiracy
5. *****This didn’t happen but I’ve already received 3 angry direct messages from PETA before I posted it.