To be fair, I watched some Food Network before Covid had us all scouring our channel guides for distractions, but the last few years provided time to take a deep dive into early seasons, spin-offs, and related programming. Here’s what I’ve learned:
Guy’s Grocery Games (GGG)/Guy’s Ranch Kitchen
You probably know Guy Fieri from the Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (DDD) profiles of local eateries or because of his trademark spiky bleached hair, but the real gem is GGG, not DDD. I was skeptical of the concept – contestant chefs scramble (see what I did there?) around a grocery store to find ingredients and cook dishes for a panel of judges while playing ridiculous games, but this competition puts fun and comradery ahead of Top Chef-like competition. The host, the contestants, and the judges are all having a great time and they seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. So much so, that Guy often has some of them over to cook at Guy’s Ranch Kitchen which appears to just be a weekend continuation of the wrap party after an episode taping. This is an invitation I’d love to get – great food among friends in a gorgeous outdoor setting where everyone is having a great time. Guy has fostered the relationships made from DDD and GGG into a full-blown professional franchise based on hanging out with people he really likes who will cook him amazing food. That has to be the pinnacle of professional achievement and definitely makes me think about my own network and the possibilities that might exist should I wrangle them together to work on our own passion projects.
The Pioneer Woman
Ree Drummond built her own empire out of a blog and her recipes and tips for living out in the middle of nowhere. Her food is delicious, unfussy, and approachable for normal people (non-chefs). She has adapted and thrived while raising kids by seizing the opportunities right in front of her. In addition to the expected cookbooks, she has a cookware and houseware line (at Wal-Mart, keeping it affordable and accessible) and a “Mercantile” along with other businesses in nearby Pawhuska, Oklahoma described by Osage County’s website as “the home of Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.” So look for what you can do in your own backyard. Build on what you know. And make some chicken pot pie or cinnamon rolls because they are delicious.
Beat Bobby Flay
Bobby Flay has been around forever and I’ll admit that I was not really a fan of his early shows, especially Throwdown with Bobby Flay because I felt bad for the people he surprised on that show. Imagine thinking your professional efforts were being featured on TV only to have a famous person show up at your event to do what you do, only better in front of everyone you know. Ugh. Beat Bobby Flay is infinitely more watchable because Bobby’s friends invite other chefs to his studio to beat him at whatever dishes the guest chef chooses. Bobby still wins a lot, but in place of the ambush, we get good-natured comradery from friends and colleagues amassed over decades who tease him about his tendencies to lean on chilies or pomegranate molasses, even his personal life. Bobby has become a relatable host, often tasked with creating dishes he knows very little about while facing deliberate distractions from his buddies who want the invited chefs to win even if it means a little friendly sabotage. Bobby laughs it off and relies upon solid skills earned over years of professional experience in restaurants and on Iron Chef and Iron Chef America and the ability to work under pressure. If you know good flavors and how to balance dishes (salt, fat, heat, acid as the kids say) then you can confidently tackle almost any recipe that comes your way. Just not wedding cakes. Know when to call in the pros. So, get the basics down, down be afraid to take on tasks a little outside of your comfort zone, and don’t beat yourself up over the areas that are just not in your wheelhouse.
Chopped
Perhaps more than any other Food Network show, Chopped gave us all ways to look at the random things in our pantries in a new way. Early in the pandemic, we were not going to the grocery store (too peopley!) and Instacart had not yet become our new normal, so working with what we had became a game if we approached it like a Chopped basket. With our teams adapting to working remotely, the “Chopped Challenge” became a virtual team-building event – a way to boost employee engagement and to bring a little fun competition to our work lives - that we could participate in from our own kitchens on our own time combining whatever we had already with a set of four random ingredients determined by the organizers. Team members created dishes and took photos along the way and winners were determined by company voting. Without the restriction of a timed competition, the players thrived at the challenge, even exploring completely new skills such as pasta-making and vegan cooking. Just because you might not have what one would traditionally need to get the job done, it doesn’t mean that you can’t come up with something great with what you do have, even if it’s not immediately clear how it will come together. And Alex Guarnaschelli is my spirit animal.
Worst Cooks in America
On the face of it, this sounds like a mean show. Contestants are nominated by family or friends as the absolute kitchen disasters they are. (I mean, it’s bad. Really, really bad.) But this class takes these students from the basics to making not just edible food, but delicious, composed dishes one week at a time, making it fun by including games and other silly ways to build knowledge on ingredients, techniques, cuisines, and more. By starting with a group of completely inept wannabe cooks, this show carries along the home viewers who are also inadvertently learning about mise en place, lobster preparation, how to fillet fish, and all sorts of other skills usually beyond the reach of the average home cook. Chef Anne Burrell coaches with a bit of tough love though she and her co-hosting chef-of-the-season really do inspire greatness out of their recruits, demonstrating that with a little preparation and some effort to keep one’s workspace clean, we can all achieve more than we thought possible.
BBQ Brawl
This show combines the coaching aspect of Worst Cooks, the comradery of GGG, and the competition aspect of Top Chef or Chopped. Pit masters, competitive grillers, and meat-smoking phenoms are organized into teams under mentors. Initially these were self-proclaimed besties Bobby Flay and Michael Symon, former Iron Chefs and formidable professionals not afraid to be goofy buddies making great food outside. Judges, and later season co-hosts, are industry leaders and build that sense that the food community is not an anonymous group of white-coated chefs, but real, human people who struggle and triumph and learn and fail just as we all do. Anytime we can learn to see our colleagues as people possessing the full range of human experience rather than just a job title or project role, we are closer to participating in the high-functioning super team we all wish we had.
Tournament of Champions
If GGG and Beat Bobby Flay have set the stage for chefs to be seen as a community of highly-skilled, but very human professionals, Tournament of Champions or TOC has managed to bring the entire concept of cooking competition shows to the next level. Guy is the perfect host, once again showcasing the talents of his colleagues and friends with all the fun of GGG, the challenges of Chopped (the “Randomizer” shows absolutely no mercy), and the star power of Iron Chef with the added legitimacy of a blind tasting like Beat Bobby Flay. These chefs are in it to win it, no mistake, but they respect and may even really like one another. Judges are A-list chefs who have no idea who is even competing, much less which dish belongs to which chef, so there’s no bias as there might have been on Iron Chef. So even in an arena where one’s work is evaluated by industry experts, there’s room for fun and creativity, even when excellence is demanded that draws upon all of one’s previous experience and abilities in front of an audience. There are no divas competing here. The Randomizer levels the playing field and even while the chefs are working hard to outshine the other, they (and we) know that in reality, they are in it together, subjected to wacky requirements for equipment or ingredients under an absurdly tight schedule.
As a project manager, I’m familiar with unfriendly deadlines. I’m also aware that I’ve been blessed to work with some great colleagues who are in possession of amazing skills and experience. I’ve had mentors that broadened my views and approaches to problem-solving, modeled leadership and teamwork, and pushed me beyond my comfort level to be better than I imagined I could be. As an instructor for new project managers, I try to build that sense of community and encourage the sharing of knowledge, best practices, and experience that makes us all stronger professionals, more resilient, adaptable, and competent regardless of the environment or challenge we face. So keep your knives sharp, your station tidy, and your mind open for whatever might come your way. It’s almost dinner time.
No comments:
Post a Comment