Food TeeVee Redux

I watch it so you don’t have to.

Last night on Battle Tomato of Iron Chef America, Bobby Flay and challenger Martin Rios, chef at the Inn of the Anasizi in Sana Fe, dug into gorgeous, heaping piles of tomatoes that were, on their own, much more exciting than the resulting dishes. Flay, true to his rep, threw chipotles and poblanos in there because he is incapable of making anything without chipotles and poblanos. It’s how he rolls. Unfortunately, he still soaked and smoked poor Chef Rios, even after the camera panned to Rios’ small daughter asking her mom: “Did Daddy win?” No, Daddy got his ass handed to him on all three fronts: taste, plating, and originality. Sorry, kid. Take solace in the fact that Flay got his ass handed to him in the Throwdown that followed Iron Chef, wherein Bobby couldn’t out eggplant parm the mayor of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. No word yet on the exact date for airing Flay’s D.C. throwdown with Dr. Granville Moore’s Teddy Folkman.

But fret not, weekend food-teevee watchers. You need not rely on metrosexual, overexposed chefs over on the Food Network, not with WHUT in the house! The three-hour food lineup Sundays starts at noon and, although programming does shift week to week, you can often catch New Scandanavian Cooking with Andreas Viestad. Viestad, who is currently writing the excellent Gastronomer column once a month in the Post, is one of the most engaging and fun food hosts out there. He loves food. He loves food so much he cannot stop himself from pumping his hands up and down when he talks about food, as if he has a giant bottle of Heinz and he is trying to get the last bits out on a hamburger the size of his head. Also, he cooks in Norway, which looks lovely, in an open-air kitchen that is often colder than a trout in a chest freezer. To keep warm during taping he, you guessed it, constantly pumps his hands up and down. It’s awesome to behold.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Food & Drink, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.